“I can't believe the AFL are protecting players”: Kane Cornes has his say on illicit drugs policy
I'm a bit blown away by it.
I know there's a school of thought that the AFL is doing the right thing here and some have downplayed it and said there's nothing to see here.
Then there's me sitting somewhere probably at the upper end of the scale going, ‘they're kidding themselves really’.
If you want to protect players who are taking drugs, not in the off-season, but on a Thursday or a Friday before a weekend game - what are we doing?
What are players doing even thinking about taking drugs?
This is not off-season, this is in competition.
"You're an idiot."@kanecornes is blown away by the illicit drug policy drama surrounding the AFL.@SENSportsday | #AFL pic.twitter.com/Agndvr3fgk
— SEN 1116 (@1116sen) March 27, 2024
You do a quick Google search, and I’ve got no idea how long it stays in your system, but about 48 hours if we're talking about cocaine, which seems to be the most common drug of choice at the moment for AFL players.
So we're saying a Thursday you're doing this and it's a Saturday game and the AFL and the club doctors are protecting those players.
I would think 'tough luck' if you're going to test positive and you're that stupid to take it on a Thursday and you test positive on a Saturday.
I can't believe the AFL are protecting those players. I think that's been a little bit lost in this whole thing.
It's about it being a medical model and it's a societal issue.
Well, if you're an elite athlete and you're considering taking drugs or you are taking drugs on a Friday or a Thursday before a weekend game, you're an idiot.
Something would seriously have to be going wrong, and I understand there is something sometimes seriously going wrong that has led players to do this, but we shouldn't be protecting these elite athletes that have chosen to do that.
If I was a teammate of one of them and I had no idea about it, which probably was the case when I was playing, I'd be furious as well.
The other thing is, just the way that every AFL player is now implicated in this.
Just last weekend, there were players they were named in the side, they withdraw late on a Friday and they don't play. There is talk that there's a hamstring and now I'm going, ‘oh, is it a hamstring or…?’, or someone gets managed after Opening Round of the season?
We're thinking why would that player need to be managed after one game and now we go, ‘Aaaaahhhhh’.
So there's a suspicion over every player now because of this.
