THE SOUTH AFRICA Institute for Drug-Free Sport (Saids) has expressed its concern for doping in underage rugby after six schoolboys tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.

The report comes off the back of this year’s U18 Craven Week, where the country’s top underage talents compete against one another.

A total of 122 tests were completed both during the tournament and out-of-competition, in which six players were cited for anti-doping violations.

This is the highest recording in the last number of years; the number of postive tests was three in 2014, five in 2015, four in 2016 and three in 2017.

In their annual report released this week, Saids CEO Khalid Galant questioned the attitudes parents and mentors have toward such measures.

In the report he cites his concern at “the high tolerance of parents and coaches to doping practices”.

In a letter to schools earlier this year, Galant said: “The individual participating schools are encouraged to schedule an anti-doping education session so that the learners, coaches and parents are aware of the drug testing process, what to expect, the dangers of doping, the risks of using dietary or sports supplements and the educational resources available to prevent falling foul of anti-doping regulations.”

The report as a whole said that 1,659 athletes were tested over the course of the year. The majority collected as urine samples, while 296 blood tests were completed. There were a further 29 test for Epo.

In total, 46 anti-doping rule violations were flagged.

Testing in South Africa did take a hit this year after the laboratory in Bloemfontein lost its Wada accreditation in early 2017.

This meant that all samples were required to be shipped abroad for to another Wada approved lab for testing.

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