Rory O'Connor
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
You know, all Wesley, part of Paul's story was all Wesley had signed a player called Christian Jensen from Australia who has just come off the back.
They'd actually signed him or registered him before he finished his four-year doping ban.
He's a former Australian Sevens international.
There's academy players in each of these dressing rooms.
This is where the next generation, the early under-20s, are playing.
This is where players who aspire to being professionals, this is where they go when they don't get a contract.
These are the players who probably have the greatest incentive to dope.
And it's not casting aspersions to say there should be more testing.
There should be more testing at that level of sport than there used to be, as far as I'm aware.
This should be a level that is tested at because...
I guess maybe, I don't know, has the eye been taken off the ball a little bit?
I guess resources are challenged at every level.
Maybe they're more targeted at the upper end and they're going after the pros, which would make sense to some degree.
But Will flagged a story that's broken just an hour before we came into the studio that six members of the Georgia national team have been suspended as well as a member of staff because of...
anti-doping finding, a WADA investigation that's been going on for some time in conjunction with World Rugby around them submitting false samples to WADA and also the Georgian anti-doping officials alerting the team that the dopers were on their way
And this is all being uncovered in a sting.
The dope testers were on their way.
So this is an elite team.
It'll be at the World Cup next year.
We had Ben Rumsby's report on South Africa last week.