The second instalment of an ESRI report into the practices of inter-county GAA teams has demonstrated a potentially troubling trend of supplement usage among players.
According to the jointly-commissioned report by the GAA and GPA, amid the widespread usage of supplements by players within the inter-county game, there remained a large portion of players whose usage of supplements was not known to anyone beyond the player himself.
"In many cases inter-county set-ups were not sufficiently monitoring players' supplement intake," the report dealing with data initially collected after the 2016 season had finished read. "While this can lead to inefficient supplement use (too little, too much, incorrect supplements), it may also be leading to unsafe practices and potentially the sourcing of supplements from disreputable sources."
"For example, some sporting organisations, such as Rugby Australia, explicitly state that supplements should not be sourced from the internet."
Problematically, it is from the internet that 26% of players surveyed have been sourcing their supplements from.
This lead the ESRI to confirm that "the potential of unintentionally using contaminated supplements is significant" within the GAA.
"Recent evidence from Australia found that 19.4 per cent of common supplements contained traces of anabolic agents or stimulants (Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency, 2016)," it stated. "It is in this context that the sourcing of supplements from less reputable sources may open up inter-county players to significant dangers in terms of consuming potentially unsafe or prohibited substances, while also potentially placing players at risk of a failed drug test."
Charting the increased visibility and usage of supplements within inter-county set-ups, the report explored the motivating factors that introduced elite GAA players to supplements in the first place.
Between football and hurling, 81% of those taking supplements did so in part because of a recommendation by a member of the inter-county set-up. In turn, 26% of those taking supplements would subsequently source them from someone working within the same set-up.
However, the majority of supplements sourced by GAA players occurs beyond the confines of the county set-up, and only 56% of those participating outlined that their usage had been monitored by their management team.
In a particularly troubling situation, where 69% and 49% of players who participated in the 2016 Nicky Rackard Cup and Lory Meagher Cup admitted to using supplements throughout that season, around 13% of that total's behaviour was monitored by management.
Although the report outlines that GAA players are among the most drug-tested athletes in Ireland, of the players surveyed in 2016, less than one in four claimed to have been tested for doping throughout their inter-county career.
Even then an event that largely concerns higher-profile teams, less than 10% of hurlers playing beneath the Liam MacCarthy Cup had ever been tested.
Across all four divisions of the National Football League, an average of 80% disclosed their personal usage. This ranged from the 90% and 92% recorded by players in Divisions 1 and 3 to the 81% of Division 4 players using supplements.
Overall, the report stated of supplement usage within the GAA and what ought to be adapted in terms of anti-doping protocols: "The finding that supplement use is high across all football divisions (Figure 5.5) would suggest that drug testing should not be confined to top-tier players, if this is current doping testing policy with regard to Gaelic games players."
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