Gregor Paul: Schools' ignorance about drug-taking set to explode in their faces

The use of supplements in schoolboy rugby has come under the spotlight. Photo / Getty

Ask the inmates and it will turn out prisons are full of innocent men. Ask the teachers or coaches and it will turn out that no pupils at any schools are taking supplements anywhere in New Zealand.

Not at our school, not our boys, not on our watch is the standard response before there are veiled implications or not so subtle hints that the local rival up the road may be the better place to be directing questions about possible issues with kids taking things they shouldn't be.

This is more worrying than it is frustrating. Worrying because Drug Free Sport New Zealand conducted a survey in 2013-2014 that threw up a number of alarming results.

They barely dipped their finger in and yet they came away highly concerned that supplement taking is probably rife in First XV rugby and worse, there may be some kids that have already dabbled in performance-enhancing drugs.

So for schools to insist it is not a problem or not one specific to their institution, they are either hopelessly and unforgivably naive or wilfully in denial. Either way they are blundering along with a level of ignorance or defiance on a stunning level that has the capacity to catastrophically explode in their faces.

This is a problem that simply can't be ignored any longer and it if it is, could end up with terrifying and awful consequences.

Schools might think that by being adamant they have no problems, that they are telling their constituent parents what they want to hear. Deny it all and parents can be reassured that drug testing First XV kids is yet more bureaucratic madness: that a box ticker in some unnamed OSH department has enjoyed a major victory.

Drug Free Sport New Zealand is in danger of being seen as the public face of this madness and portrayed as the big, bad wolf having made the decision to institute random drug testing at next month's national Top Four Championship.

Concerns have already been raised about privacy issues, about the ethics of testing what are, in some cases, children rather than young adults.

But DFSNZ is most definitely not the bad guy. It is definitely not over reacting and if it is playing any role in what will inevitably be branded a war on illicit substance taking in New Zealand schools, it is that of saving schools from themselves.

DFSNZ has its suspicions that supplement taking is extensive within this age group. What it needs now is some kind of hard evidence to confirm they are right.

If there are positive tests, schools will be compelled to take the issue more seriously than they currently do. They will be under pressure to monitor their players better and provide deeper, more extensive education about the dangers of taking supplements and other substances.

It is too late to imagine the horse can be put back in the stable in regard to reducing the perceived importance of rugby within the culture of all boys' schools.

It's too late to believe that First XV players across New Zealand can be reprogrammed to accept that only a tiny number of them are actually good enough or well enough equipped to make the professional ranks and that they should just enjoy the experience for what it is rather than view it as a pathway to a well-paid career.

The wider situation can't be changed but it can be better managed and it will begin with the major rugby schools accepting that not only is there a major problem with supplement use, but that they are duty-bound to do what they can to help eradicate it.