Ireland No8 Jamie Heaslip believes the processes in place regarding performance enhancing drugs in rugby works.

The issue has been raised by Sunday Independent journalist Paul Kimmage in recent weeks after the release of a book on the subject in France, with the former cyclist writing of an ‘Omerta’ in the sport and saying “any sport that has a supplement culture at 16 is on a dodgy path”.

Kimmage has called for an open debate on the issue and Heaslip has commented on the journalist’s work in a Twitter conversation.

At Leinster’s press conference ahead of the clash with Harlequins he was asked about his remarks and his own experience of drug testing.

“I just commented on how he likes to leave things very open,” the 30-year-old said. “That’s all. I think the processes that are in place work.

Asked how frequently he’d been tested during his career, Heaslip said: “I’ve lost count how many times I have been tested, blood, urine, they do it all. Many times they have called to the house, they call here (to Leinster).”

Kimmage spoke on radio yesterday following on from his article on Sunday ‘Dangerous obsession with size creates bigger need for answers‘. He wrote about performance enhancing drugs in rugby, including a recent report by Sky News correspondent Paul Kelso stating that one third of sportspeople currently serving bans for PEDs in the UK are rugby union players.

Kimmage again reiterated the suspicions over the Argentinean rugby team in 2007 that performed so well and helped consign Ireland to an early exit. The presence of Alain Camborde within their coaching team at the time is a huge concern the former pro-cyclist said given his subsequent suspended prison sentence for possession of doping substances.

"Alain Camborde wasn't in cycling, but he was very much in the school of preparation, and this new magic word nutrition," he told Cooper this evening.

"He produced a press brochure how good he was in 2007, and in that press brochure he lists that he's working with all the Argentinean players, he's taken them on as his physical trainer before the World Cup."

"That is all absolutely fine and dandy, but four years subsequently he was given a suspended prison sentence for possession of doping substances.

"You got to ask yourself the question about the contacts, or liaison, between the Argentinean rugby team and Alain Camborde. You read that and you think that was a remarkable performance by the Argentineans in 2007 and was it down to that?"

"I wrote about that on Sunday and it kept Ronan O'Gara up at night, he tweeted about it, thinking about it."

While he says he doesn't know if any Irish rugby players in the past have used performance enhancing drugs, he says it would be naïve to discount the idea.

"You've got to be blind to think that this is going on in France, and Argentina and South Africa and England – because if you look at the anti-doping stats now on the positives recently in England, most of them are rugby union players - they you are going to be a bit naïve to think that we are somehow insulated from that."

"I don't know," he replied if he believed Irish rugby players have doped.

"I had one text from someone within rugby community here saying "this is a time bomb". For me the killer is the silence. I have heard this silence before."

Online Editors