By Todd Balym
August 30th 2007 @ 9:53am
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Johns confession an insight into pressured player: Gallop
NRL chief executive David Gallop says Andrew Johns’ confession that he depended on drugs and alcohol throughout his entire career illustrates the pressure the world’s best footballer was under.
Gallop tonight said “it was a very distressing story” that Johns had used recreational drugs throughout his 12-year career, but says it is of no surprise to the NRL that a player has an issue with drugs.
“It’s an insight into the pressure that he has been under for many years and he should be given credit for his frankness,” said Gallop.
“I think we’ve known for some time and we’ve acknowledged for some time that drugs are a problem in the community and footballers are not immune from it.
“It is no doubt damaging for his reputation and the image of the game.”
During the former NSW and Test captain’s career, there were no reported cases of Johns ever actually testing positive to an illicit substance.
However, it hasn’t been until this season that the NRL has adopted a uniform approach to recreational drug testing.
Under the NRL’s current code, clubs themselves must conduct a minimum of 70 random tests per year. A player is handed a suspended $5,000 fine for a first offence, given an employment warning and ordered to undergo counselling and ongoing testing.
A second offence results in a 12-month suspension and possible sacking.
It isn’t until a second positive result that a player is publicly named.
Gallop said he “is not aware” of Johns ever returning a positive sample and says the player’s confession highlights the NRL’s move for a stringent and collective policy.
“I think it indicates the work we have done in the last few months to have a more rigorous and uniformed program,” said Gallop.
“The risks are now higher than they have ever been.”
Former Newcastle coach Michael Hagan, now with Parramatta, did not wish to elaborate on whether he was aware of Johns’ battle with alcohol and drugs.
Hagan coached Johns from 2001-2006, including the memorable 2001 premiership.
“I know that he is about to publish a book too and from what I understand there’s some things that he’s prepared to talk about in the book which I think is going to be published certainly in the next month or two I think so some of that will become a lot clearer at that point in time,” said Hagan.
“As far as what he may say or reveal, I think that’s for him to advise.”
By Todd Balym - AAP
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Glen said | August 30th 2007 @ 9:55am | Report comment
Watching the Johns on TV last night was fascinating stuff. It was a pretty tough interview, but I guess he’s now open about what he’s been doing for much of his career. How did the NRL not catch him, this is what I want to know?
JimC said | August 31st 2007 @ 11:45am | Report comment
The problem is there is a real conflict of interest here just as in the AFL - No one really wanted to catch him - not the Knights, not the NRL……..17 drug tests in 10 years leaves alot of free weekends.
It doesn’t take anything away from his career for me. Ultimately he was an entertainer and sadly this happens to a great many individuals in that industry. Maybe now he’s got this off his chest and there’s no prospect of him playing again he’ll get the space to build a new life without the pressure, and hopefully without the chemical support he’s been relying on.
gforce said | August 31st 2007 @ 12:05pm | Report comment
It appears that the Newcastle Club were aware of his drug taking. Johns confirmed that they almost certainly knew.
Gallop has also confirmed that he and NRL had also heard of the “rumours”.
There seems to have been a real reluctance to bring it to the surface by both Newcastle and NRL. The last thing they wanted was their No 1 star outed as a drug taker.
You must wonder then how serious the NRL and their clubs are about drug taking in their sport. It resembles the responses to just about every other incident in RL. It eventually gets “investigated”, “nothing happened” and then “swept under the carpet “and everyone pretends it doesn’t exist.
Listening to Gallop being interviewed on ABC 702 AM program this morning by an interviewer that hasn’t spent most of his time getting belted by the opposition, he was struggling to answer the hard questions of ‘”did you know about this” , “why didn’t you act by doing more than 1 or 2 tests a year” etc etc. It all sounded pretty weak on Gallop’s part and clear that there was no real desire to address the issue at the time.
As for Johns, good on him for fronting up and being totally honest.
The NRL wil be hoping this blows over as soon as possible. It shouldn’t. The issue is not with Johns , it is the attitude of Newacatle and the NRL to something they were well aware of and chose to ignore. Much better to investigate the grapple tackle and fining all and sundry $10,000 for bringing the game into disrepute. What a joke !
Peter L said | August 31st 2007 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
gforce - couldn’t agree more - this issue is not about Johns who, now that he has been caught, has come clean. Hopefully he will now get the support needed to stay clean.
Sports clubs have a definite conflict of interest in these situations - do the right thing by the player, or do the right thing by the shareholders. Typically the real moeny talks and the shareholders take priority at the expense of the player. It is downright wrong.
Any employer who suspects an employee of being under duress from their profession owes it to that individual to provide the appropriate help and support to cope. In electing to turn a blind eye - quite actively as it seems - is just about as bad as putting the drugs in Joey’s mouth.
Look, Joey is no choir boy but by the same token he has kept his nose pretty clean in terms of off field trouble. Clearly his dalience in drugs has had minimal impact on his daily life and his persona has been such that even while under the influence he has been able to stay out of trouble. All good - but those around him who knew owed it to him, as a mate, as a colleague, to help him. But it seems none of them thought enough of him to do so, and all his employers could think about was the cash impact he had on the gate.
Come on ARL, do the right thing now, and help Joey through this. Make it right, for him, for his family and for all the rising stars in the game that will go through the same thing.
sheek said | August 31st 2007 @ 2:01pm | Report comment
I bet the AFL are nervous. Their drug vigilance is slacker than the NRL.
If the AFL had guts, they would demand every player from every club involved in the play-offs submit to a drug test, or be barred from competing.
That would set the cat among the pigeons!
Spiro Zavos said | August 31st 2007 @ 3:05pm | Report comment
We know now why Andrew Johns was not offered a contract to play rugby for the Waratahs and the Wallabies a couple of years ago. The people involved had a pretty fair idea of his use of recreational drugs. They did not want to expose rugby players to a charismatic player of Johns’ stature knowing that there was a possibility that some of the younger players, especially, might want to emulate the great player, off the field as well as on it.
The case of Andrew Johns, too, provides an interesting insight into the pressures on rugby writers to write the stories the power players in the game want them to write.
What happened in my case is an interesting case study of how a rugby writer who takes a stand risks offending passionate and vocal supporters. From the time the matter of Andrew Johns presented himself as a candidate to switch codes I took a very strong to stand against the move. I was accused on being anti-league and being hostile to the best interests of the Waratahs and the Wallabies.
My stand, though, was based on several calculations. First, I did not think that a rugby league icon should switch codes at the end of a glittering career in league. I did not think this was fair to rugby league supporters for whom Andrew Johns was truly an inspiration. My feeling is that the immortals in their codes owe it to their code and supporters not to turn to the dark side.
This feeling applies the other way, too. Mark Ella could have made a fortune playing league for St. George. He resisted this to his financial cost at the time. But he is forever a rugby hero, one of the immortals of the game and in a sense this makes up for the financial pain he suffered by staying loyal.
Andrew Johns to my mind was the league equivalent of Mark Ella. He owed it to his game to stay loyal to it.
Mark Ella was in his prime when St George made him their offer. Andrew Johns was past his prime. His body was falling to pieces. There was no way he could have played two seasons of rugby and be available at this time to play for the Wallabies in the 2007 RWC. Brett Robinson, a medical doctor, who was the ARU’s High Performance manager, ruled out Johns on these grounds. He received such unfair treatment from Johns’ backers and sections of the rugby media that he subsequently resigned and took up an important job in the private sector.
Brett Robinson and Gary Flowers, who supported the decision to kill off the Andrew Johns’ switch, emerge as heroes from this affair. They were severely criticised but they held their nerve and did the right thing for Australian Rugby.
I wrote several articles in the Sydney Morning Herald arguing that Andrew Johns should not be offered a contract by the ARU. Johns’ manager, John Fordham, sent me a letter marked ‘private’ in which he insulted me by calling me an ignorant stooge of the ARU and suggested that Johns on one leg was better than anyone in Australian rugby (Stephen Larkham? Matt Giteau?).
I published the contents of the letter in the SMH to show the sort of pressure the Johns camp was exerting on the ARU and the media.
There is a timely post-script to this whole business. Just before I left to come to France to cover the 2007 RWC I was chatting to a friend who is knowledgeable about rugby matters. We were discussing John Connolly’s use of Johns as a special-rugby-tricks coach and the suggestion that he would be with the Wallabies in France. ‘What the hell is John doing bringing Andrew Johns into the Wallaby camp at this time?’ my friend asked.
Recreational drug use was mentioned as an overwhelming reason why the Wallabies should have nothing to do with Johns.
The point of all this is that reporters often have information they can’t really use upfront but which they can use as hidden support, a bit like the framework of a house, to buttress their views and opinions on controversial issues.
And when a manager says that the reporter is a stooge to some powerful organisation it may well be a matter of the pot calling the kettle black.
brumby justin said | August 31st 2007 @ 3:06pm | Report comment
I sent an email to Gerard Healey the other week about the same thing. He made a crack about cycling and drugs. Unlike cycling the NRL and AFL don’t want to catch players that might diminish their ‘brand’.
At the tour de france enough tests were done to represent 2.7 tests per rider over the three week period. That’s why they caught the cheats. I’d like the see the NRL or AFL test each of the players involved in the last three weeks of their competition 2.7 times EACH - never happen.
As for illicit (recreational or non-performance) drugs - it makes a mockery of the whole football industry that once someone confesses everyone talks about how they new or had heard.
But football clubs have been covering up for their players for decades, recreational drugs are just the next thing they need to try and hide so they don’t waste the money they’ve invested in the playing stocks.
And there is the big problem - Joey’s situation is more an indictment of the Knights, ARL, NSWRL and NRL’s inability as professional organisations to create any kind of systematic support for the player they created.
They are the real culprits in all of this - I hope Joey gets better but more importantly I hope all of those organisations get their act together in putting real programs in place to manage the life changes younger players go through (whether they are stars or not).
joe blow said | August 31st 2007 @ 3:25pm | Report comment
gforce said, “As for Johns, good on him for fronting up and being totally honest.”
Yes after 10-12 years of drug use and dependence how courageous and honest of Joey, brother Matt, Chief Harrigan, Fatty Vautin, Roy Masters… what a bunch of brave righteous souls.
Classic comment from Roy: “I’ve confronted him with it, confronted his manager with it, defamation laws prevent you from writing it.”
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=291646
Peter L said, “now that he has been caught, has come clean. Hopefully he will now get the support needed to stay clean.”
If Johns had’ve become a Waratah a few years back one can only wonder if he’d have been busted because surely his dependence and use was known to the Tahs and ARU hierarchy even then no? Let’s face it if it hadn’t have been for the British cops who apprehended him without a train ticket over the weekend this would still be all hushed up and he’d still be employed as the Wallabies kicking coach over in France…
But where does this leave Andrew Walker and Wendell Sailor with their 2-year bans for snorting coke in a private setting with friends and then not being allowed to play either code anywhere in the world for the length of their suspensions? Do these two have a legal leg to stand on for compensation? And as Peter L. says above hopefully these two have also now been given “the support needed to stay clean.”
sheek said, “If the AFL had guts, they would demand every player from every club involved in the play-offs submit to a drug test, or be barred from competing.”
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Senator Bill Heffernan said yesterday. “If it is good enough for us to push footy heroes, what about us?”
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/06/23/1182019429961.html?s_cid=rss_smh
Costa said: “I am quite prepared for a sniffer dog to search the parliament, and I am quite prepared to undertake a drug test at any time alongside my parliamentary colleagues.” - The Australian, Thu 13 Jun 2002, page 5, 2nd edition
PM Howard said: “This has come up before,” he told the Ten Network. “I mean I think the point Bill’s simply making is that if that there’s evidence that, you know, there’s a problem with politicians then they should be treated no different from anybody else.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Test-MPs-for-drugs-says-Heffernan/2007/06/24/1182623707339.html
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said he was not sure what tree the controversial senator was “barking up”.
Oh.
Peter L said | September 1st 2007 @ 9:39am | Report comment
Spiro, do you really think this blog needed spill over from the one defending journo’s?
Joe Blow - you’re right and I said at the time of Sailors indiscretion that he needed support from those that made him famous, not just punishment (although he also needed punished - his was not his first indiscretion, lets face it). All this reflects almost anywhere that young adults are thrust into the spotlight and paid well - witness Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan who also suffer from a lack of accountability and support from those who profit from them, much the same as these high profile players.
Testing is just one action that can be taken, but there should be education (self development), plus an emphasis placed on remifications of various things, good and bad. There should be confidential conselling, and all sorts of other mechanisms. If the administration KNOW as in the case of the Knights, and they choose to do nothing they should be sacked!!
Guy Sainsbury said | September 2nd 2007 @ 1:26pm | Report comment
Andrew Johns. Hmmm. I must say I’m not convinced. It looks to me that Johns has managed to pull a fast-one. There has been great comment about how brave he was in speaking out etc etc. Yet everyone seems to be forgetting that the reason he spoke out is he was caught red-handed. Brave is doing something like former WA Premier, Geoff Gallop, announcing he suffered depression and resigning. Getting caught with drugs and then saying “I’m depressed” as a justification could be interpreted cynically as merely playing for sympathy.
Let’s compare the treatment John’s received with that of Wendell Sailor. Sailor was expelled from all good company and treated like a pariah. (I don’t think the fact that Johns is no longer a player is relevant as he is just as much of a role-model now as Sailor ever was.)
And I’m not convinced that, if Johns was in fact bi-polar, he would have been able to control his moods, much less medicate himself with recreational drugs, to the extent necessary to achieve the many great things he did.
I guess I’m just saying is this depression or some other issue - addiction or difficulty in coping with the near messianic adulation he has received for most of his career. And I’m not trying to pick on Andrew Johns. There are perhaps other issues that I think he may need help with and he should get that help. It is simply that he is, to my mind, the most recent example of the misuse of mental illness in public debate. Willie Mason gets up to mischief and declares he has/had ADHD. Couldn’t it be he was simply being a bloody idiot? (He did suggest he could play for the All Blacks, after all.) To Willie Mason his credit, I did see him on the Footy Show saying that he perhaps didn’t handle things as well as he should of earlier in his career. Bravo Willie. Let’s call it for what it is.
joe blow said | September 2nd 2007 @ 2:48pm | Report comment
Guy, It goes a little further. Walker and Sailor copped 2-year bans, no sympathy, no second chances, no counselling, no nothing (and were banned from playing league for that period of time also), contracts torn up, their incomes taken away for a mere indiscretion (it’s why the AFL’s ‘three strikes’ policy makes sense though hypocritically the federal government doesn’t agree yet Howard now comes out asking Novocastrians to rally around Johns in support). But it now emerges Joey hasn’t just been popping MDMA - he got away in the NRL comp with what Walker and Sailor didn’t in union:
“Andrew Johns was rugby league’s time bomb. Joey’s decade-long drug habit alarmed team-mates and officials, some of whom confronted him angrily and publicly over his cocaine- and ecstasy-addled state.
The Queensland State of Origin coach Mal Meninga and the former Broncos five-eighth Kevin Walters challenged Johns at Star City Casino after a legends match about five years ago, the two recently retired champions lacerating him over his drug use.”
http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/they-begged-joey-to-quit/2007/08/31/1188067369214.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Gordon Tallis rightfully has spoken up; seems everyone in league knew, meaning all the big guns as well, (and no doubt in rugby circles as well) yet Johnsie was allowed to continue on his merry way without penalty.
“Gordon Tallis lodged a formal complaint to rugby league authorities about the drug taking of several Australian players, including Andrew Johns, during the 2000 World Cup, according to reports.
Then Kangaroos coach Chris Anderson has confirmed former international Tallis lodged the complaint about the drug-taking culture after Australia won the 2000 Cup in England, but said ARL powerbrokers took no action.”
http://www.livenews.com.au/articles/2007/09/01/Johns_took_drugs_on_tour_Tallis
There’s another angle to this that appeared in Time magazine back in 1989 (21 Aug), titled “Do Humans Need to Get High?” It was based on the findings of a “research psychopharmacologist at the UCLA School of Medicine” named Ronald K. Siegel, and he wrote a book titled: “Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise”. Two pertinent quotes from the article are as follows:
“I have come to the view that humans have a need — perhaps even a drive — to alter their state of consciousness from time to time.” - Dr. Lester Grinspoon.
“There is not a shred of hope from history or from cross-cultural studies to suggest that human beings can live without psychoactive substances.” - Dr. Andrew Weil
So on these grounds Johns, Walker and Sailor haven’t really transgressed that erratically after all right?
Guy Sainsbury said | September 3rd 2007 @ 6:50am | Report comment
Joe,
I agree that Sailor and Walker were not treated compassionately. Sure, ping them for a breach of the rules. After all, the rules were/are pretty clear. But you have to have the follow-up. Otherwise you are merely posturing not trying to do something about the underlying problem - example, law & order debates in election campaigns.
I also agree with your observation on the turning of a blind eye to Johns’ behaviour. It’s a travesty to the game, but also to the man himself. If a mate has a problem you shouldn’t ignore it but have the tough conversation. So good on Gordon Tallis, Mal Meninga & Kevin Walters and shame on the ARL.
As for the question of whether man can live without drugs, I would have thought it was obvious that we can’t. Recreational drugs are still prevalent. And what about the legal ones - particularly alcohol? And how many people seek to alter their minds by adrenaline or endorphins - mountain climbers, runners and any other sportsperson?
I wasn’t having a go at Johns for taking drugs. I wish he wouldn’t or didn’t feel he had to, but that is driven from concern for my fellow man than an ideological opposition to any kind of mind-altering substance. My problem is with what looks to me like an attempt to garner sympathy/deflect opprobrium using mental illness. Doesn’t Johns need to realise that this is his doing and not the fault of some exogenous force?
Sam Taulelei said | September 3rd 2007 @ 11:20am | Report comment
It may be just me but I don’t feel that someone who is simply caught for engaging in illegal drugs warrants any compassion. It would be a different matter if Sailor and Andrew Walker voluntarily came forward and admitted to a drug problem. That would demonstrate taking responsibility for their own actions and genuinely seeking help and support.
There are far more worthier souls requiring of our compassion who don’t have the means or the opportunity to seek assistance for their drug habits than sportsmen who got found out.
My sympathy extends to Andrew Johns, only in that he didn’t have a support network around him who had the conviction to to tell him the truth and the strength to ask him to seek help. As his brother said on the Footy Show last week when he received the call from Brian Carney “I thought knowing Joey’s reckless lifestyle, that this was the phone call I had always dreaded, that he was dead”
That would have been the real tragedy.
Guy Sainsbury said | September 3rd 2007 @ 12:45pm | Report comment
Sam,
Compassion is a personal choice, so I don’t begrudge your position in relation to Sailor & Walker. I find it difficult to reconcile with your position on Johns as all 3 were caught for what essentially the same wrong-doing - being caught with or taking illegal drugs. Arguably, Sailor and Walker, as leaguies in a rugby world, were similarly unhelped by those around them. (although Walker was benched for alcohol-related issues, wasn’t he?). Comparing the outpouring of support for Johns with what happened particularly to Sailor, it could be argued that Sailor is more deserving of the sympathy you extend to Andrew Johns. Obviously, you may disagree with me on that.
In any event, my reference to compassion was not about expressing sympathy for someone like Messrs Sailor, Walker or Johns. It’s about wanting to assist in dealing with the underlying problem.
Sam Taulelei said | September 3rd 2007 @ 1:02pm | Report comment
Guy I don’t disagree with you at all. My sympathy for Johns was brought on with the reports of noted people in the rugby league community who knew of his drug problem for years and could have helped, yet did very little about it. I don’t know if Sailor and Walkers drug habit was as well known in the rugby community. Nevertheless I agree and support your position in wanting to deal with the underlying problem. Both the NRL and AFL have an opportunity to lead by example and make a definitive statement about how it will deal with the problem. I hold my breath and wait expectantly.
joe blow said | September 4th 2007 @ 7:29pm | Report comment
Guy, maybe that ‘exogenous force’ has something to do with, “the high level of psychological ‘pressure’ associated with his career as an elite sportsman,” and so has been cited as “a significant factor” in his motivation to use drugs? (Wikipedia, enter “Andrew Johns” then under “Events after retirement”.)
Sam’s reference to The Footy Show interview is insightful in the sense that Johns when asked why he used ecstasy replied defensively because it’s available in practically every nightclub the world over — as we well know it is — and so peer pressure plays a part as well.
Others claim the State gov’s to blame for giving the green light to the Kings Cross injecting room, which has proved successful in reducing overdose deaths among addicts and a reduction in crime such as muggings and break-ins, but that it “gives out the wrong message to the community,” so they claim. Yet this argument remains difficult to accept considering those who are drug dependent and attend the centre become registered and efforts are then made to rehabilitate them.
Some years ago on SBS’s Insight program several experts in the field argued (along with the Greens) that ecstasy should be made available over the counter to ‘party goers’ (however Bob Brown & his Greens have since done the impeccable back-flip), especially at weekends but beforehand the pills should be tested by government-licensed testing centres to ensure they’re safe for consumption. If such procedures had been in place in 1995 perhaps Anna Woods would still be alive as would another teenager who died recently at a rock concert in Centennial Park?
Simply my gripe is that Walker and Sailor were treated as pariahs yet Johnsie is ‘a victim of circumstances’ and/or was subliminally influenced by ‘unethical government policy’ or whatever. The Dutch government seems to be able to deal with the drug issue so much more realistically compared to other countries, including Australia. Maybe we should look a little closer at their methods.
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=129825