AFL greats Nathan Buckley and Kane Cornes have mentioned Collingwood younger gun Jack Ginnivan’s suspension for taking a bootleg substance in the course of the membership’s coaching camp in Lorne final month.
The Magpies and the AFL over the weekend confirmed Ginnivan has been handed a two-match ban after imaginative and prescient reportedly surfaced of the 20-year previous taking a bootleg substance at a Torquay resort.
The ahead has been suspended for Collingwood’s first two pre-season matches in addition to its first two video games of the common season and has been hit with a $5000 suspended nice whereas copping a strike beneath the league’s illicit medicine coverage.
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Talking on SEN on Monday, Cornes took concern with the general public response, suggesting AFL gamers taking medicine is changing into normalised by society and that it must be extra denounced.
“I really feel like there’s a perception that every one gamers are utilizing medicine,” he mentioned.
“That’s not my expertise – I by no means as soon as noticed it. Granted I used to be so naive with stuff like that and I’m nonetheless so naive to today. Individuals would snigger at me for the way naive I’m, however I by no means as soon as noticed it in 15 years – and that was a very long time in the past now and maybe issues have modified.
“However why is it simply accepted that notion of AFL gamers and why are we not doing something about it? We simply settle for it and we transfer in.
“Bailey Smith was taking medicine and we moved on two weeks later and the identical will occur with Jack Ginnivan. I’m not even crucial of Jack Ginnivan as a result of I can’t be, as a result of the business appears to simply accept this and we’re not arduous sufficient on it.”
In the meantime Buckley, who coached Ginnivan in his closing season at Collingwood, “completely believes” gamers taking medicine remains to be condemned, nonetheless thinks the training course of is crucial.
“When is it sufficient to let it go and to see it as a studying alternative for a 20-year previous boy actually who’s making an attempt to discover ways to change into a person and an AFL footballer?” Buckley posed.
“Generally they’re going to pop by means of the floor and generally they don’t, however they’re studying alternatives and progress alternatives.”
The Collingwood legend believes the “cautionary story” comes again to when two former Magpies – Lachlan Keefe and Josh Thomas – in 2015 copped two-year bans after testing optimistic to a banned substance clenbuterol, which was laced with a leisure drug they’d taken.
Buckley thinks it’s a larger to lesson to AFL gamers versus Bailey Smith’s incident final yr – that noticed the Bulldogs star additionally get hit with a two-game suspension after a video emerged of him with a white powder substance – given the ex-Collingwood duo misplaced two seasons of their careers.
“They missed out on plying their commerce for 2 years as a result of they acquired introduced into the ASADA code as an alternative of the illicit medicine coverage, in case you do the identical factor now it’s 4 years – in case you do 4 years now it’s your profession over – that’s the true cautionary story for any participant,” he mentioned.
“You don’t know what you’re placing in your physique.”
For Buckley, it’s vital Collingwood’s senior leaders now wrap their arms round Ginnivan like he was their “baby” and help him as finest as doable.
“Society tells us that it occurs extra recurrently than we consider, however for a younger participant that’s made a blue like that, he’s going to want extra help than he’s a kick up the arse as a result of he’s already judging himself harshly and accepting an entire heap of criticism consequently,” he mentioned.
Ginnivan on Monday morning returned to the membership and pledged to work more durable than ever to regain “belief” whereas apologising once more for his blunder when briefly talking to media.
New Magpies skipper Darcy Moore additionally spoke to media upon his arrival at Olympic Park and mentioned he was “fairly upset” with Ginnivan’s actions however and that the membership would wrap its arms across the younger participant.
“It’s fairly disappointing for everybody, and on this occasion Jack has fallen in need of the requirements we count on for ourselves,” Moore mentioned.
“However we’re wanting to help him going ahead to make some higher selections. “We’ve acquired to ensure from now we help him and safeguard his welfare.”
Moore added that there was “no concern” with medicine at Collingwood regardless of Ginnivan’s slip up.
“We’ve got over 90 female and male athletes at this membership, the big majority of whom take their jobs actually critically and make nice selections,” he mentioned.
“However having mentioned that, we don’t function in a vacuum. We’re human beings and other people make errors of judgment and that’s one thing that Jack’s accomplished on this occasion. We get a variety of training and the group is aware of that, so it’s disappointing.”
Moore mentioned of the AFL reviewing the Illicit Medication Coverage: “I believe it clearly performs an vital function in minimising hurt across the league, when it comes to flagging gamers who’re vulnerable to making errors round drug use.
“It supplies invaluable unidentified information across the prevalence of drug use to the league and to the medical consultants in an effort to preserve tabs on how massive of a difficulty that is. I believe the difficult a part of it’s when issues change into public as a result of round a welfare and a hurt minimisation mannequin, not all the things goes to be public and when it does it could actually create slightly little bit of gray space.
“Gamers clearly don’t function in a vacuum and are human beings and make errors. “We all know with the consumption of alcohol, that impairs judgment, so that you’d be loopy to assume there’s no gamers across the league who use medicine infrequently. It actually exists. By way of how widespread it’s, I’m actually not able to say contemplating I don’t have all the information.”
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