AFL: Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley says the news that two of their players have tested positive for banned performance enhancing drugs is devastating
AFL: Collingwood's Chief Executive Gary Pert address the media following both Josh Thomas and Lachlan Keeffe's positive tests to banned performance enhancing drugs
AS IF the AFL didn't already have big plans.
While we wait for the verdict on the Essendon 34, Collingwood's Josh Thomas and Lachlan Keeffe have knocked the Bombers off the front page, which is no mean feat.
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This was D-Day which is now short for Drugs-Day.
Keeffe and Thomas — two best mates — have returned a positive test to Clenbuterol in their A sample.
AFL: 360 discuss the latest performance enhancing drugs scandal involving two Collingwood players
Their career has crashed over a cliff and they hang on by a finger nail.
Clenbuterol is an Olympic Games-type drugs. It is a big boys drug. It can't be found in a sports drink. And it can't be found in a headache tablet.
It is an S1 anabolic agent not approved for human use in Australia — and we all remember that term.
One question has to be answered: How did it get into the bloodstream of Keeffe and Thomas?
They have told club officials they have "no idea how this happened".
They are either lying or telling the truth and some people close to this story have a foot in each half.
If they're lying, they were good at it because Collingwood football manager Neil Balme said yesterday he believed the pair when he spoke to them on Friday.
If they're lying — and we've seen it at Collingwood with Heath's Shaw infamous declaration than Alan Didak was not in the car — they will eventually be exposed.
Josh Thomas has been provisionally suspended. Picture: Wayne Ludbey Source: News Corp Australia
If they're telling the truth, it matters not much anyhow.
They will be suspended for up to four years if they can't explain a legitimate reason for their blood being contaminated.
Various stories emerged on Monday, one which will be explored involves a couple of porterhouse steaks eaten in Queenstown eatery during the club's February training camp.
It sounds a lot like my dog ate my homework, but good luck to them because if they're telling truth, they'll need a believable story.
The Magpies distanced themselves from the pair yesterday, in the sense that they were quick to explain they had audited its nutritional program and, as expected, it was clean.
It was an important offering from the Pies because lawyers for Thomas and Keeffe might also argue that while in New Zealand they also ate what Collingwood served them.
In any case, the AFL has a problem.
That's four positive tests to performance enhancing drugs in two years.
St Kilda's Ahmed Saad drank the contaminated the sports drink. Fremantle's Ryan Crowley took a tablet from a friend. We have the Collingwood pair. And Essendon towers over the top of all of them.
So much for the AFL's chest thumping about their clean sport.
Lachie Keeffe has been an important part of Collingwood's backline. Picture: Adam Head Source: News Corp Australia
That's four clubs out of 18 in the headlines — and that's only for performance enhancing drugs.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the illicit drug problem is far bigger than people believe.
It was only in November, 2012, that Magpies chief executive Gary Pert said some players were guilty of "volcanic behaviour" during the off-season.
It emerged in January, 2013, that up to half a dozen Magpies players had self-reported to the AFL after using illicit drugs in the 2012 season.
Let's be honest, it has been a bitterly disappointing period for the biggest franchise in Australian sport.
If the Bombers players are found guilty today, the 2015 season will be destroyed.
Surely, the AFL want the players to be found not guilty because the alternative is carnage for the competition — appeals, more appeals, and the Bombers would require kids and top-ups for who knows how long.
A not guilty plea might also spare the AFL from a tsunami of legal writs over an alleged breach of duty care.
It might not save them from James Hird, however.
Will he seek revenge or let sleeping dogs lie?
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