Nick Riewoldt has poured pressure on the AFL in the issue of illicit drugs, Mark Robinson writes

Days after it was announced the AFL’s drugs policy was to be reviewed, St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt dropped a bomb about drug use among players. Was anyone at headquarters listening? Mark Robinson on the drugs issue in the AFL.

AFLPA boss Paul Marsh was silent on the issue. Picture: Hamish Blair

The AFL and AFLPA love drugs numbers.

They love them because they can keep them secret and when numbers are revealed by the media, they can deny them.

They don’t offer proof or provide clarity, they simply say, “not true”.

That’s what the AFL’s general counsel Andrew Dillon said at the weekend when asked about 3AW’s Ross Stevenson’s claim that 16 players from one club had used the mental illness card to be spared from drug testing.

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“The numbers that have been quoted on radio and in the media are completely wrong,” Dillon said.

Of course, no offering of what actually are the numbers, or if there are concerns the drugs policy is being rorted.

Even Eddie McGuire denied Stevenson’s claim.

Nick Riewoldt says drug use is “out of control” in the AFL.

McGuire, who said he had not got a story wrong in 35 years’ journalism, said his sources confirmed it to him.

There’s Dillon, AFL chief medical officer Peter Harcourt and a “few others’’ inside HQ, according to the AFL on Monday, who know the drugs numbers.

It begs the question: Who told McGuire?

It should be noted Stevenson is an impeccable radio broadcaster and those who know him well say he wouldn’t go to air half-cocked.

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It also begs the question though: Who told Stevenson his information?

Nick Riewoldt didn’t have numbers on Monday but he hit the airwaves fully cocked.

What he said, as a recent former player, was stunning — not because of what he said, but largely because he said it.

He claimed that drug use among players was “out of control’’, the players were “taking the piss out of the system’’, and that’s it’s a “free for all in the off-season’’.

They are frightful comments for kids to read and hear and because Riewoldt is much closer to the current mass of players than the majority of people, they can’t be ignored.

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said Ross Stevenson’s report was wrong. Picture: Mark Stewart

The AFL would’ve hated it.

The AFLPA would’ve hated it.

They can deny exact numbers but it is more difficult to deny opinion, particularly when it comes from one of the most respected and admired people in the game.

It’s called an informed opinion.

AFLPA boss Paul Marsh was oddly quiet on Monday.

When colleague Jon Ralph wrote an article at the start of last season and opened with: “For every coke-snorting nightclub-hopping AFL bad boy, there are dozens who quietly start charities and visit sick kids in hospitals …’’ — Marsh hit Twitter with anger inside an hour and demanded the opening paragraph be removed.

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On Monday, Riewoldt spoke on SEN morning radio, and by 1pm, had heard nothing from Marsh, the PA or the AFL.

The AFL’s brand-management default position got punched in the face on Monday.

Because while the football industry is littered with anecdotes of players and drugs, which are near impossible to write without proof, Monday’s comments from a recent superstar player would leave many mums and dads and kids wondering what sort of competition the AFL is running here.

AFLPA boss Paul Marsh was silent on the issue. Picture: Hamish Blair

We have a club president, Western Bulldogs’ Peter Gordon, raising concerns about the potential of young draftees being groomed by older teammates, and now we have Riewoldt painting a stunning drugs picture.

In his argument that the drugs policy needed to change, Riewoldt said players — dare we guess how many? 100? 200? 300? — were tripping the light fantastic in the off-season.

It’s a PR nightmare for the league.

It is the largest and loudest drugs commentary from a player since Dale Lewis went public with “75 per cent’’ back in 2002, and the league’s eventual response will be intriguing.

Will they tear down an ornament of the game, actually admit there’s a widespread issue of drug taking, or fall somewhere in between?

Absolutely, the AFL should be believed when it says players have been saved from drug addiction because of their drugs policy, and that can’t ever be underestimated, but at the same time, no one believes players aren’t also rorting the system.

Riewoldt argued changes were needed while it continued to help vulnerable players.

More to the point, he called bulls--t on the players and the AFL over a policy and its consequences which, he lamented, were out of control.