General Rugby Discussion II

irishbucsfan

blue note wrote: »

Having kimmage involved was the last thing he wanted, now he's had to correct a story in his book.

He wanted the dramatic story of failing a drugs test but it turned out he just had loads of testosterone (sounds manly) and that all was then fine. That was the story he wanted in the papers. The actual story, while similar, wasn't a story anyone would care about though.

David Walsh hasn't really written about drugs since lance Armstrong. I don't think he has the appetite for it after the toll it took on him. He even says now that he believes team sky were clean.

Did anyone else report on this story apart from Kimmage? First I heard of it was the Offtheball papers review talking about Kimmages article, I hadn’t realised it was report as some big dramatic headline grabbing story?

Former Former

blue note wrote: »

David Walsh hasn't really written about drugs since lance Armstrong. I don't think he has the appetite for it after the toll it took on him. He even says now that he believes team sky were clean.

Today's Sunday Times has an article by Walsh calling on the Sky team doctor to "come clean"...

Squidgy Black

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Did anyone else report on this story apart from Kimmage? First I heard of it was the Offtheball papers review talking about Kimmages article, I hadn’t realised it was report as some big dramatic headline grabbing story?

Nobody has payed any attention to it other than Kimmage. In fact I haven't seen any other journo refer to his book at all.

RoversCeltic

this is really embarrassing for the IRFU and Heaslip

salmocab

RoversCeltic wrote: »

this is really embarrassing for the IRFU and Heaslip

It really isn’t

RoversCeltic

salmocab wrote: »

It really isn’t

really?

you dont think a pro athlete would know the finer details of what happened regarding a drug test

something stinks here

salmocab

RoversCeltic wrote: »

really?

you dont think a pro athlete would know the finer details of what happened regarding a drug test

something stinks here

Nothing stinks at all. It’s been explained at most as someone else suggested Heaslip sensationalised it (I don’t agree with that) how you think this reflects on the irfu at all is beyond me.

BDI

Imagine a cyclist failed an A test.. Got told that he didn’t fail the test he just had loads of testosterone in his body but not to tell anyone.

He is now so happy and proud that he is this superhuman that has drug levels of testosterone in his system naturally he runs out and tells everybody.

Tells everybody that his testosterone levels are so high in his body that he sets off drug tests.

Of course the first thing everybody would do is attack the journalist who asked him to clear it up.

Nobody would ever think it looks abit like players are taking what they are told and not to question to doctors floating about the place with syringes. Not in cycling that wouldn’t happen.

is_that_so

is_that_so wrote: »

Don't know if this has been posted already. Interesting comments on the future of NZ rugby, which it seems is not in good shape.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/nov/03/new-zealand-rugby-new-era-challenges

I always laugh a bit when I see "he was of the old guard, so must be the same"
The lad at the top dictates so much. Individual board members have very little influence and must toe any line, publicly, or face accusations of that nebulous "unrest"

irishbucsfan

BDI wrote: »

Imagine a cyclist failed an A test.. Got told that he didn’t fail the test he just had loads of testosterone in his body but not to tell anyone.

He is now so happy and proud that he is this superhuman that has drug levels of testosterone in his system naturally he runs out and tells everybody.

Tells everybody that his testosterone levels are so high in his body that he sets off drug tests.

Of course the first thing everybody would do is attack the journalist who asked him to clear it up.

Nobody would ever think it looks abit like players are taking what they are told and not to question to doctors floating about the place with syringes. Not in cycling that wouldn’t happen.

Imagine... someone actually read the articles about this and didn't post a bunch of stuff completely irrelevant to what actually happened?

What on earth are you talking about doctors with syringes for? He "ran out" to tell everyone about the test 10 years later. And now 13 years later Kimmage has been told repeatedly nothing happened by both the sports councial and the player and he still can't get over himself. Seems he has a lot of fans who'll leap to conclusions with him based on no evidence though.

Squidgy Black

Pieter Steph du Toit won player of the year, Rassie won coach of the year, Barnes won ref of the year and TJ Perenara won try of the year for the one he scored against Namibia

jacothelad

RoversCeltic wrote: »

this is really embarrassing for the IRFU and Heaslip

It's far more embarrassing for a drug cheat turned journalist who couldn't be arsed to verify a story before rushing gleefully in to print.

CatFromHue

I'm not sure why all the agro for Kimmage here.

Heaslip got his story wrong and Kimmage wrote this.

Kimmage never said he was taking anything, he just wrote that something's not right with Jamie's story. Which is correct.

irishbucsfan

CatFromHue wrote: »

I'm not sure why all the agro for Kimmage here.

Heaslip got his story wrong and Kimmage wrote this.

Kimmage never said he was taking anything, he just wrote that something's not right with Jamie's story. Which is correct.

Haha, you're completely omitting the part where he's suggesting Heaslip did it on purpose and is playing a game?

molloyjh

CatFromHue wrote: »

I'm not sure why all the agro for Kimmage here.

Heaslip got his story wrong and Kimmage wrote this.

Kimmage never said he was taking anything, he just wrote that something's not right with Jamie's story. Which is correct.

Read the follow up article where he details his interview of Una Kelly from Sports Ireland. It's a blatant attempt at a hatchet job in which he repeatedly ignores her insistence that she can't comment on it, ignores that she all but confirmed that a test was carried out which resulted in no case to answer and then deliberately left the whole thing wide open. Which is oddly the very thing Heaslip accused him of back in 2014. Something wasnt right with the story. Heaslip didnt have a 100% recollection of the incident. Which is in itself 100% normal.

CatFromHue

A player with 229 Leinster caps and 95 for Ireland saying he failed a drugs test is a story.

Then when the story by the player has a couple of holes in it it becomes a bigger story.

Kimmage may be quite aggressive but that doesn't change that there's a story here.

I'm not saying Kimmage is 100% right, you can read from what Kelly was saying what was going on, but Heaslip didn't tell what fully happened.

irishbucsfan

CatFromHue wrote: »

A player with 229 Leinster caps and 95 for Ireland saying he failed a drugs test is a story.

Then when the story by the player has a couple of holes in it it becomes a bigger story.

Kimmage may be quite aggressive but that doesn't change that there's a story here.

I'm not saying Kimmage is 100% right, you can read from what Kelly was saying what was going on, but Heaslip didn't tell what fully happened.

If the holes weren't absolutely tiny and inconsequential to his original point then maybe it would be a story.

But its clearly not a story for anyone other than Kimmage and whoever else at the Indo he gets assigned to it. Or else perhaps the other major publications have just forgotten to follow it?

He didn't "fail" a drugs test purely on the technicality that you don't call it a "fail" if you are in his situation. Its hardly a huge surprise that a player with no professional experience in drug enforcement didn't grasp that technicality.

BDI

Am I getting this right though. He failed the a test. They told him he had so much testosterone in his system from being such a horse of a man that it must have fecked up the test. His b test came back clear as far as he knows.

How often do these tests, set by scientists, get fooled by man mountains who just have so much testosterone in their body normal testing procedures don’t apply?

Did his mother or father have huge testosterone levels? What about his children? Does he still have huge test levels now that he has left the Ireland set up.
Was he hugely hairy and angry because of all this testosterone all his life and now he has answers he can be treated by doctors who never noticed this before?

molloyjh

As it turns out he didnt fail the A test as such. He didnt pass it. This is probably (and I'm talking from near total ignorance here) a scientific distinction where one sample doesnt prove anything. If you pass sample A there is nothing to investigate. If you dont then there is. A pass or fail only comes from further investigation and testing. It's a pure technicality and doesn't in anyway change the point of the story.

CatFromHue

irishbucsfan wrote: »

If the holes weren't absolutely tiny and inconsequential to his original point then maybe it would be a story.

But its clearly not a story for anyone other than Kimmage and whoever else at the Indo he gets assigned to it. Or else perhaps the other major publications have just forgotten to follow it?

He didn't "fail" a drugs test purely on the technicality that you don't call it a "fail" if you are in his situation. Its hardly a huge surprise that a player with no professional experience in drug enforcement didn't grasp that technicality.

I personally think there's little in it bar Heaslip getting some details wrong.

What's getting Kimmage annoyed is

Continuing World Rugby’s commitment to the voice of the players, former Ireland captain Jamie Heaslip was appointed as a member of the anti-doping advisory committee, joining former Argentina captain Dr Felipe Contepomi as a player representative.

This was announced in July so Heaslip should know to get the details of his test correct.

Heaslip has also commented recently that he thinks he never played with or against anyone who was doping. He has played against people who've doped, that's a fact.

All this stuff is like a red rag to a bull.

Kimmage and a few other journalists think there's an issue with drugs in rugby so this is just one part of that over all story.

irishbucsfan

BDI wrote: »

Am I getting this right though. He failed the a test. They told him he had so much testosterone in his system from being such a horse of a man that it must have fecked up the test. His b test came back clear as far as he knows.

How often do these tests, set by scientists, get fooled by man mountains who just have so much testosterone in their body normal testing procedures don’t apply?

Did his mother or father have huge testosterone levels? What about his children? Does he still have huge test levels now that he has left the Ireland set up.
Was he hugely hairy and angry because of all this testosterone all his life and now he has answers he can be treated by doctors who never noticed this before?

He's not unique in having abnormal testosterone levels no.

The January before his test they actually changed the values involved in the test so it would have been known that false positives were going to be more common for a while.

Studies would find that around 1% professional athletes would have a testosterone/epitestosterone ratio similar to Heaslip's. He's not unique at all.

Its just not reported on because its private medical information and weird people on the internet decide to start asking loads of questions about hair and babies when they're handed this sort of mad information for free.

irishbucsfan

CatFromHue wrote: »

I personally think there's little in it bar Heaslip getting some details wrong.

What's getting Kimmage annoyed is



This was announced in July so Heaslip should know to get the details of his test correct.

Heaslip has also commented recently that he thinks he never played with or against anyone who was doping. He has played against people who've doped, that's a fact.

All this stuff is like a red rag to a bull.

Kimmage and a few other journalists think there's an issue with drugs in rugby so this is just one part of that over all story.

Kimmage is getting annoyed because a guy who has never failed a drug test was appointed to an anti-drug committee.

Well.. not really. You can't get annoyed if you live in a perpetual state of annoyance.

Just another one Kimmage has gotten wrong.

I can't help but think that Kimmage probably finds it quite annoying that athletes like the guys in Heaslip's generation can go their whole career in high performance sport and not dope, because that's something he failed to achieve personally.

Exclamation Marc

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Pieter Steph du Toit won player of the year, Rassie won coach of the year, Barnes won ref of the year and TJ Perenara won try of the year for the one he scored against Namibia

Can't really disagree with the awards, all things considered. Unsure of the merit of Taufeteʻe in the nominations. Good player but one of the top players in the world? Anyway, much of a muchness.

Good to see Barnes get the award as he bowed out as referee. I think he's quite an underappreciated referee even despite his prominence.

Romain Ntamack was awarded Breakthrough Player of the Year and SA unsurprisingly won Team of the Year.

CatFromHue

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Kimmage is getting annoyed because a guy who has never failed a drug test was appointed to an anti-drug committee.

Well.. not really. You can't get annoyed if you live in a perpetual state of annoyance.

Just another one Kimmage has gotten wrong.

I can't help but think that Kimmage probably finds it quite annoying that athletes like the guys in Heaslip's generation can go their whole career in high performance sport and not dope, because that's something he failed to achieve personally.

It's a bit more than that.

Heaslip has said there's no drugs in rugby, he's never played with anyone who doped, and he's never played against anyone in rugby who doped. Which is straight up wrong.

Kimmage doped once or twice as far as I know at the end of his career, and then quit. He could have had a far far better career, and his wasn't bad as it was, if he'd just doped like the rest of the guys. He retired young too, just gone 27, because he saw that if he wanted to compete he'd have to dope.

molloyjh

CatFromHue wrote: »

It's a bit more than that.

Heaslip has said there's no drugs in rugby, he's never played with anyone who doped, and he's never played against anyone in rugby who doped. Which is straight up wrong.

Kimmage doped once or twice as far as I know at the end of his career, and then quit. He could have had a far far better career, and his wasn't bad as it was, if he'd just doped like the rest of the guys. He retired young too, just gone 27, because he saw that if he wanted to compete he'd have to dope.

When did Heaslip say that? I remember him saying that there wasnt a doping culture in rugby and that he believes that the processes in place work. I dont remember him saying he has never played against guys who have doped though. And who did he play against who had been doping?

sydthebeat

CatFromHue wrote: »

It's a bit more than that.

Heaslip has said there's no drugs in rugby, he's never played with anyone who doped, and he's never played against anyone in rugby who doped. Which is straight up wrong.

Kimmage doped once or twice as far as I know at the end of his career, and then quit. He could have had a far far better career, and his wasn't bad as it was, if he'd just doped like the rest of the guys. He retired young too, just gone 27, because he saw that if he wanted to compete he'd have to dope.

Unless he's said that in his book, which I haven't read yet.... I don't believe heaslip said those things, especially being so definitive about not playing against players who doped. How would he know?

irishbucsfan

Complete red herring anyway.

If you’re defending Kimmage’s articles by trying to bring up something that’s not in them then I think that says all that needs to be said.

If he thinks someone else is in rugby a doper and he’s writing meaningless articles about Heaslip as a way to act out on that then he’s just a childish troll.

hahashake

Saw Cummiskey heavily imply SA are dopers. Bad taste.

ionadnapokot

I havent and wont read it. But hes probably right.
He is trying really hard to grab some headlines and clicks.
ITimes are ruining their rep letting him off the leash.

I think Wales are going to struggle without Gatland.

I'd go so far as to say they will become the new Scotland over the next five years.