Mark Robinson: Collingwood under fire after fallout from Ginnivan suspension

A quirk in the AFL’s illicit drugs policy means if another video were to emerge of Jack Ginnivan using drugs, it may not count as a strike, writes Mark Robinson.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – FEBRUARY 17: Jack Ginnivan of the Magpies is seen with a bandaged during the Collingwood Magpies Intra-Club match at Olympic Park Oval on February 17, 2023 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Just like that Collingwood is under siege.

Jack Ginnivan takes a key in a Torquay toilet and, today, a woman claiming to be a mum of a former Collingwood footballer calls 3AW and says her son was introduced to cocaine when he was at the club.

Mums bring an urgency and fear to a subject that, if you listen to banter, is absolutely widespread in the community. But mums make it personal. Mums lose kids to drugs.

It’s not a crisis at Collingwood, not at this stage anyway, but it embarrassingly puts the club back under the spotlight of illicit drug use.

Emotion always follows stupidity.

If Ginnivan wasn’t so stupid as to be more careful of his surroundings, then this other mum wouldn’t call the radio station.

The Pies, meanwhile, say they haven’t got a drugs problem and we are asked to believe them.

What if we don’t believe?

What if they are covering a wider problem?

Ginnivan will miss both of the Pies’ practice matches and their opening two games of the 2023 season. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

The AFL knows the answer, but it’s not telling the public.

There’s been a drugs cover up in the AFL ever since the league stopped releasing drug testing results and then, more recently, forced club officials to sign statutory declarations not to declare to anyone the results of the hair-testing, which is used for data and not drug breaches.

Collingwood, as has the other 17 teams, have the results of two hair tests completed during the 2022 season, in February and August

The hair samples taken when the players returned in January this year are known to the AFL, but not yet to the clubs. They will be shared in the coming weeks

So, Collingwood doesn’t really know if it was a summer of madness or Jack the lad was the outlier.

There’s always a contradiction when drug busts go down.

“I think this is an isolated incident and that’s the way we’re treating it,’’ Pies footy boss Graham Wright said of Ginnivan.

“It’s not a pattern of behaviour at all for him or anyone else at the club.”

But then skipper Darcy Moore, emphasising the need for support of his teammate, said: “Players obviously don’t operate in a vacuum and are human beings and make mistakes … So you’d be crazy to think there’s no players around the league who use drugs from time to time. It certainly exists. In terms of how widespread it is, I’m really not in a position to say considering I don’t have all the data.”

Collingwood’s new skipper Darcy Moore says the players will support Ginnivan through his suspension. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

What is it then, an isolated event or normal behaviour?

If the Pies do have a drugs problem, or any other club, the league will step in, Andrew Dillon said yesterday.

“If there’s a club that is an outlier in terms of numbers, you would say to the club, ‘here’s your data … and let’s work with you to change behaviours, both individually and collectively,” he said.

The target on the back of 20-year-old Ginnivan grows ever so large.

He will need utmost support, as the skipper said. Opposition fans will be further relentless on the kid, and not least his opponents who definitely won’t consider “mental health’ when they sledge him mercilessly.

Clearly, he was reckless once — that we know of — and he absolutely can’t be reckless again.

Ginnivan caught the ire of opposition fans throughout 2022. Picture by Michael Klein

He’s lucky in one aspect though.

If a separate video emerges of Ginnivan taking drugs on say, January 10, he won’t be slapped with a second strike offence. It would be classified as an “historic event’’.

Dillon yesterday: “Because he was not aware of the first strike, he gets the chance to modify his behaviour before he gets a second strike.’’

Dillon hasn’t got his head in the sand about drug use among players.

“I would think we would be, in terms of the cohort of 18-35 or 30-year-olds, I think it’s less than the general population but that doesn’t make it OK,’’ he said.

It’s been a disastrous two days for Collingwood.

Ginnivan is on notice, another mum is heartbroken and the bloke who filmed the video, well, aren’t you a hero.

Originally published as Mark Robinson: Collingwood under fire after fallout from Ginnivan suspension