Davies: Players take drugs to look better, not play better

WALES centre Jonathan Davies believes amateur players found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs may have done so to look good rather than play well.

There are currently 27 rugby union players in the UK serving bans for anti-doping rules violations – seven of those are Welsh – making it by far the worst-offending sport.

Next on the list would be rugby league, with nine players currently serving suspensions.

Davies believes players at amateur level are taking performance-enhancing drugs for reasons of vanity and to look better when they go on holiday.

But players do not just test positive for drugs that improve performance. Traces of cocaine were found in the system of three out of the seven Welsh players currently banned.

“I think the Union should give some education [to amateur players]. Nowhere near the level that we get,” Davies told JOE’S House of Rugby podcast.

“But you look at some of the cases. A few of the people that have been banned in Wales are for recreational drugs.

“The ones that are performance-enhancing, I don’t think your amateur rugby player is taking performanceenhancing drugs to be faster on the wing or stronger in the scrum.

“I think it’s on a vanity level. They want to look good when they go on holidays. They have a photo on Instagram or whatever.

“Unfortunately, that’s the way it is at the moment. How you are perceived on social media is important for a lot of people. How they put their image across.

“I think that’s where maybe some of the players at amateur level are testing positive, because they’re doing it for other benefits, not performance on a rugby field.

“[Having] 27 in rugby is a lot. It would be interesting to speak to these people [and ask] what drove them to actually take it.

“Whether they were up-and-coming and wanting to get to a professional level or was it: ‘I’m going to Ibiza in a month’s time and I want to look good in the beach clubs’?”

A Walesonline investigation in 2018 found that Welsh rugby was ‘infamous’ for its doping problem at amateur levels.

And Nick Clancy, who was hit with a two-year ban in 2014 after testing positive for anabolic agents after using them to recover from injury, agreed with Davies.

“In the lower leagues, there are boys on it but it’s not for performance, it’s for image,” Clancy said in 2018. “When you go up the levels, it’s more performance.” The Welsh Rugby Union has always strongly condemned the consumption of performance-enhancing drugs and it runs anti-doping education and awareness programmes.