Jon Ralph: Willie Rioli may have derailed West Coast’s flag bid

Willie Rioli has thrust himself into sheer ASADA hell. Tampering with a sample is as serious as any offence in the doping world. Ironically if he was scared of being found for illicit drugs it wasn’t what ASADA were looking for.

Willie Rioli has been suspended after he tried to dodge drug testers.

In one mad, scared, crazy moment, Willie Rioli may just have derailed West Coast’s back-to-back premiership bid.

This was a naive young kid in sheer panic trying to dodge drug testers, rather than someone trying to pull off an orchestrated doping heist.

A silly young kid fumbling and bumbling and yet caught red-handed — by a tester — trying to substitute his urine for a substance as performance-enhancing as Gatorade or water.

As a result, Rioli has thrust himself into sheer ASADA hell with a provisional suspension that has put his career in doubt and sees him in danger of a maximum four-year ban.

THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

The AFL, so determined to uphold the moral high ground in all areas, will have little wriggle room given that tampering with an ASADA sample is as serious as any offence in the doping world.

And the sporting world will be watching, given how loudly Australia condemned the most recent tampering scandal of Chinese swimmer Sun Yang — even if the circumstances are vastly removed.

Willie Rioli was caught trying to substitute his urine during a drug test.

Only seven days ago, Rioli seemed to have the football world at his feet, with a fresh three-year contract and capable of magic on the football field few others possess.

He led Essendon a merry dance at Optus Stadium last Thursday night, teaming with his fellow indigenous forward Liam Ryan to bewitch the Bombers with dancing feet and his scintillating right boot.

By early yesterday morning, as West Coast quarantined him away from a football team trying to prepare for tonight’s cut-throat final against Geelong, his world was crashing down.

He must surely have known back on August 20, with that bungled test and the reaction from the tester, that he was headed for imminent disaster.

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Yet with the footy world oblivious to what transpired, he kicked three goals against Hawthorn the following week.

Incredibly, if Rioli did have an illicit drug such as cocaine or marijuana in his system, it wasn’t anything ASADA testers were looking for.

Those drugs are only illegal on match day, so he wasn’t even risking a positive drug strike under the league’s illicit drugs code.

It is hard to see how the Eagles recover in a single day before tomorrow’s semi-final. The players are not only crestfallen for their mate, but will miss seeing him hitting up targets inside 50 as effectively as anyone in football.

The scandal and subsequent suspension of Rioli may have an impact on the Eagles premiership defence.

This is a story that contains every ingredient for a football scandal of grand proportions.

This is a legitimate finals bombshell on the eve of a cut-throat final for an Eagle side that had built up a mighty head of steam in its premiership defence.

And for a proud football club that hoped it had shrugged off the mantle of bitter slurs such as “West Coke Eagles” after critics claimed its 2006 premiership was tainted because of the off-field deeds of Ben Cousins, Daniel Kerr and others.

Rioli might not be the most famous of the Rioli clan, but his journey to make the AFL had TV mini-series written all over it.

The cousin of Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli and Richmond’s Daniel Rioli and nephew of the great Maurice Rioli, he had talent to burn.

But as a 21-year-old playing for the Tiwi Bombers in the Northern Territory he was 90kg and living the good life.

Only when SANFL club Glenelg came calling did he drop 16kg through sheer hard work, overhauling his diet and fitness program.

Collingwood's Sam Murray was also caught in a ASADA scandal.

As was Brayden Crossley of the Suns.

He promised AFL recruiters he played like Cyril, then lived up to his word, missing just one game in a debut year featuring a prominent role in West Coast’s Grand Final heroics.

Instead of a post-season blow-out trip to Hong Kong he returned to the Tiwi Islands and ran between waterholes to keep fit with Richmond’s Daniel.

The easy slur to throw is that West Coast has learned nothing after the drug issues that brought the club to its knees.

That decade of rampant illicit drug use was laid bare by a top-secret report published only last year by the Herald Sun, with AFL legends such as Robert Walls still adamant the 2006 premiership was tainted.

But as football boss Craig Vozzo said of that connection on Thursday, “as a club we have had some bad periods in the past”.

“We have worked really hard for 15 years to really improve in a whole lot of ways, I’m really proud of our players and the standards they set off the field in the community and try to be good people — and we will continue to do that.”

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The Essendon doping scandal was Australian sport’s ultimate cautionary tale.

A epic drugs saga so long-winding and so damaging that surely every AFL player was on notice.

Yet the AFL is already into its third ASADA-related matter this year, with Collingwood player Sam Murray’s cocaine suspension and Gold Coast’s Brayden Crossley also facing a drug ban for a positive match-day test.

Rioli would have sat through multiple ASADA seminars and had the rules drilled into him about protocols for testing and the risks for breaking them.

In those few minutes he could have ruined his own future and put the Eagles’ year at risk.

Sport continues to be the ultimate form of reality TV but, for Rioli, that uplifting mini-series has morphed into a football horror story.

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