United Arab Emirates player Duncan Murray has received a 12-month ban after testing positive for the stimulant Methylhexaneamine (MHA) during the HSBC Asian 5 Nations tournament in 2011.
IRB Anti-Doping Manager Tim Ricketts said:

“This is the IRB’s fourth positive finding in 2011 for MHA after three Sri Lankan players tested positive during the same tournament. MHA is popping up in all sorts of nutritional supplements and has many variants and names which mean that players must ensure that they check what they are consuming and fully understand the WADA Prohibited List.”MHA is a stimulant originally derived from the geranium plant but is now mostly synthetically produced. It was first developed as a nasal decongestant in the 1940s but can now be found in dietary or nutritional supplements under different names.

Some products have been identified in certain countries to contain MHA Examples of products that contain MHA or its variants can be found on the IRB keep rugby clean site. MHA is marketed as a pre work-out supplement. The tendency and the madness that follows to be in fashion needs education of what is bad. The knowledge of commercial brands that have supplements is a must for those who administer the game at all levels. An Adverse Analytical Finding for MHA carries with it a potential two year sanction.

Those Players who use dietary or nutritional supplements do so at their own risk and the contents of the inquiry reports is a must reading for the top administrators so that education is taken seriously .
The requirement is for players to exercise extreme caution regarding the use of any dietary supplement as no guarantee can be provided about any particular supplement. These include vitamins minerals, herbal remedies etc. Strict Liability – Players must be aware that, under the policy of strict liability, they are solely responsible for any substance found in their body: Regardless of whether the substance was contained in a dietary or nutritional supplement prepared or recommended by team management, medical personnel or other trusted persons. Players who insist on using dietary supplements should consider the risk assessment prior to using any supplement. This includes seeking expert guidance from an appropriately qualified person.

Recently I was talking to Doctor Priyanjana Zoysa of the Police who explained the repercussions of following advice of “non professionals”. There was a sportsman who was a national champion and now at the end of his career. To me this guy has an athletic figure many will be proud of.

This man being in the late stages of his sporting career was advised by a “amateurs” that he should take some supplements to maintain his strength and body. The advice included taking around eight eggs a day. The athlete looks fine but now suffers from various effects which may have caused serious issues. This underlines the statement of seeking expert guidance.

Reading the inquiry reports of both UAE and Sri Lanka, there is acceptance that the suspect commercial products have been freely handed around and consumed in the dressing rooms. It is at this point that home unions have been faulted for the lack of supervision.

As I read the report available on the IRB site the need for education and the positive involvement of the governing body has to be emphasized. I quote some of the paragraphs as examples. The union will have to educate and get the commitment of players that they have been educated. This will have to done in Sinhala too as one may not be able continue to mitigate that players were not conversant in English. It is stated that Murray being from England cannot expect the same mitigation of not understanding English as the Sri Lankans who pleaded such ignorance.

Paragraph 84 of the report states, “While, as noted, there is no suggestion in the case at hand that the Sri Lanka team management or medical personnel supplied the implicated supplement, the Players attempted to deflect responsibility towards the Union and the team medical adviser.

While there are valid concerns about the adequacy of the anti-doping education received by the Players and, in particular, the availability of information in their own language, the Players’ fault in the present case is palpable. Indeed, having regard to the factual circumstances described by other cases involving MHA and similar substances, the degree of fault attributable to these Players is a high one.
Paragraph 85 - Gurusinghe accepted a supplement from a coach at his school involved in weightlifting. Weightlifting, of course, is a sport that has had more than its own share of problems involving performance enhancing substances.

He did not bother to look at the label. He made no other inquiries about what the product contained. He merely accepted on face value the assurance that the product was “creatine”. In paragraph 32 - “I was introduced to this “creatine” product called “Hemo-Rage” by my school coach and weight lifter xxxx xxxxx who never mentioned about the ill-effects of this particular product and accept that I placed this product in the dressing room, for team consumption in the belief that it was the widely accepted “creatine”.

Paragraph 69 - The IRB points to the evidence that various supplements, including Hemo-Rage, were “freely available in the dressing room” “openly kept on top of a table and that “total responsibility should be taken by the medical team” (corroborated by witness Wijesinghe and Saranga ) The inference is one of extreme carelessness on the part of the Players and the team management but, also, a lack of acceptance of responsibility by the Players, who choose instead to blame the Union, the team management and the Union’s medical adviser.

* Vimal Perera is a former Rugby Referee, coach and Accredited Referees Evaluator IRB