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Hawthorn's Travis Tuck in action during the AFL Round 03 match between the North Melbourne Kangaroos and the Hawthorn Hawks at the Telstra Dome. Slattery Images
Once again the AFL’s handling of drug use among players is under the spotlight, with Hawthorn’s Travis Tuck yesterday becoming the first player to record three strikes under the league’s illicit drug policy. The final strike came after the 23 year-old was found unconscious on Friday night and treated for a suspected overdose.
A lengthy tribunal sitting last night found that Tuck’s drug use was not recreational, but a by-product of his clinical depression, which he’d been receiving treatment for. The tribunal handed him a 12-game suspension, with the ability to play VFL football after eight games.
As you would expect, yesterday’s news has put quite a bit of pressure on the AFL’s current policy.
Mick Malthouse had expressed concerns early in the day that clubs were not told enough and by the evening, Hawthorn chief Stuart Fox expressed his club’s disappointment over not being informed of Tuck’s issues earlier (it did not know of his clinical depression until after Friday night).
After stressing the club’s main priority was Tuck’s wellbeing, Fox said: “Whilst the club agrees that an illicit drugs policy is necessary, we are disappointed that we could not provide Travis with support after his first strike and just maybe we could have avoided this situation.”
The three strikes policy protects players on one strike, and informs only the club doctor after a second strike.
Of course, to those that suggest the club should know more earlier on, it’s quite easy to make the argument that the doctor is more capable than anyone else at a football club to support a player with these type of issues. Just how many other people really need to know?
If the player feels an obligation to tell anyone else at the club, then he’s within his rights to speak up. Otherwise, if it’s his choice, he should be able to confront his issues confidentially.
Now yes, you can understand clubs wanting to look after their own interests, and to have a clear picture of what their dealing with. However it seems like a bit of a stretch to say that with more people aware of his situation, Tuck would not have relapsed on Friday.
So maybe there’s only so much we can read into the immediate reactions of club figures.
The other criticism levelled at the illicit drug policy is that it’s “too soft” and should make way for a zero tolerance approach. In the past, this has been a contentious debate.
However too often, people have confused performance-enhancing drugs with recreational drugs. Or in-competition testing with out-of-competition testing. Or the system that existed when Ben Cousins entered the competition with the system of today.
And it’s led to some pretty uninformed comments.
Make no mistake, if the AFL have a player on their hands found to have taken performance-enhancing drugs, then the decision would be a no-brainer. The player would be kicked out of the game.
If the AFL found a player using a banned substance on the day of a game (in-competition), then you’d imagine there’d be a similar outcome.
But for those battling demons far removed from game day – as we saw with Cousins last week, and Tuck this week – the main goal of the AFL’s policy should be to support the player involved, not abandon them. And for sticking to that belief, despite a wave of criticism, the league should be applauded.
That said, none of this changes the fact Tuck is where he is right now. It would be naive to say the system can’t improve, or more cannot be done.
That means more debate on the topic, so long as it’s educated debate, should be welcomed.