AFL PLAYERS Association boss Paul Marsh has publicly conceded the illicit drugs policy is not really a two-strike policy.
Speaking on In The Game podcast with Damian Barrett, Marsh revealed that certain players are protected from registering a second "strike", which results in a four-game suspension under the policy.
Barrett asked Marsh: Have you got it written into the policy, or do you at least have an understanding, that while you say it is a two-strike policy that there will never be a public revelation of a person on two strikes?
PM: No, absolutely not the case, absolutely not the case.
DB: So why hasn’t there been, when clearly there has been behaviour of that nature?
PM: And what are you basing that on?
DB: I'm basing that on what I feel I know, and also the fact that there has only been one public revelation of a third strike, and that third strike being because of a police involvement.
PM: That’s the point you all jump to, and look, I’m not going to get into giving you details behind the scenes.
DB: I understand that.
PM: The reality of it is there is a medical intervention here.
DB: But not all drug use is medically thought of …
PM: If you let me finish on this point, the medical intervention is if a player has got to a point where he has recorded a positive there will be a discussion with medical experts at that point as to why. And sometimes it might be, 'I just made a mistake; it was the end of the season, we were out socialising and I made a mistake'. At that point they are not going through a program or anything like that. It will be a conversation. Where a player has, and part of this is you actually get an understanding of the levels of usage, so that gives you a good indication of whether the player may have an issue or not, whether it is a consistent pattern. And when it is a consistent pattern, that’s when you start having conversations with doctors and psychs.
DB: But doesn’t a consistent pattern mean that there has been more than one strike, to use that word in inverted commas. A consistent pattern would suggest to me there is regular usage.
PM: This is on public record that a player who goes into the program will keep being tested, but they aren't able to be … there are no further strikes at that point.
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The AFL late last month said it would review the illicit drugs policy, which began in 2005 as a three-strike policy before being made a two-strike policy in 2016.
Only one player has been suspended under the system – Hawthorn’s Travis Tuck in 2010, and only after police intervention, which effectively became his third strike.
The full Paul Marsh interview in In The Game podcast will be published on Thursday on AFL.com.au.
