Doping case finally over for former Cronulla players

[Armchair Critic]

The NRL has secretly resolved its doping cases against the forgotten Cronulla five — the former Sharks players who refused to accept a plea deal and token suspension offered two years ago by the league and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

The Australian can reveal that all five players have now pleaded guilty to taking a banned peptide during the club’s disastrous flirtation with sports scientist Stephen Dank in the early weeks of the 2011 season.

The end of the Cronulla saga, secured behind closed doors prior to the club’s historic premiership, leaves an outstanding appeal by current and former Essendon footballers against their two-year bans as the only unfinished anti-doping business from the drug scandal.

The NRL earlier this year offered all five players a one-year ban, backdated to an effective six-month suspension, if they pleaded guilty to taking a banned substance.

Three of the hold-out players, Colin Best, Ben Pomeroy and John Williams, accepted the ASADA-approved deal. Best and Williams are retired from the game while Pomeroy plays club football in the French Pyrenees.

Two players, Paul Aiton and Stuart Flanagan, accepted they were injected with a banned peptide at Cronulla but refused to accept the sanction on offer. Instead, they took their case to an NRL anti-doping tribunal hearing and argued for the same penalty imposed on the dozen current and former Sharks players who took the NRL’s original deal in August, 2014.

In July, the NRL tribunal found in favour of the players. Both players were given the same deal as Cronulla captain Paul Gallen and his 11 current and former teammates — a one-year ban, backdated by nine months due to the NRL and ASADA’s unreasonable delay in prosecuting the case.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sub...b2a337b3f111beb20d9f18f8edd&memtype=anonymous

 

[Muggs]

The NRL has secretly resolved its doping cases against the forgotten Cronulla five — the former Sharks players who refused to accept a plea deal and token suspension offered two years ago by the league and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

The Australian can reveal that all five players have now pleaded guilty to taking a banned peptide during the club’s disastrous flirtation with sports scientist Stephen Dank in the early weeks of the 2011 season.

The end of the Cronulla saga, secured behind closed doors prior to the club’s historic premiership, leaves an outstanding appeal by current and former Essendon footballers against their two-year bans as the only unfinished anti-doping business from the drug scandal.

The NRL earlier this year offered all five players a one-year ban, backdated to an effective six-month suspension, if they pleaded guilty to taking a banned substance.

Three of the hold-out players, Colin Best, Ben Pomeroy and John Williams, accepted the ASADA-approved deal. Best and Williams are retired from the game while Pomeroy plays club football in the French Pyrenees.

Two players, Paul Aiton and Stuart Flanagan, accepted they were injected with a banned peptide at Cronulla but refused to accept the sanction on offer. Instead, they took their case to an NRL anti-doping tribunal hearing and argued for the same penalty imposed on the dozen current and former Sharks players who took the NRL’s original deal in August, 2014.

In July, the NRL tribunal found in favour of the players. Both players were given the same deal as Cronulla captain Paul Gallen and his 11 current and former teammates — a one-year ban, backdated by nine months due to the NRL and ASADA’s unreasonable delay in prosecuting the case.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sub...b2a337b3f111beb20d9f18f8edd&memtype=anonymous

The only thing I find surprising about this is the players who went to the tribunal only argued for the same penalty as those who took the deal, and not additional backdating due to th NRL sitting on their backside until it got brought up in senate estimates.