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Mick: We Should Know Of All Strikes Post by: The Learned One and CK 1 September, 2010 - 6:49 AM
(Photo: The Slattery Media Group)
The families and football clubs of AFL players abusing illicit drugs should be made aware of first and second strikes, according to Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse.
Young Hawk Travis Tuck was suspended for 12 games and fined $5000 by the AFL tribunal on Tuesday night for becoming the first player to record a third strike under the league's illicit drug policy.
But because of the policy’s nature, Hawthorn was only made aware last weekend that Tuck had already received two strikes prior to his apparent overdose on the drug GHB.
“We are the principle carers of these players, we want to see them healthy, we want to see them well, we want to see them perform, we want to see an afterlife (to footy),” Malthouse told Triple M’s Hot Breakfast on Wednesday.
“We’ve got to have the capacity to help these players, they’re not bad people, they’ve taken a wrong decision, it’s caught hold of them, it’s an addiction and as a consequence, we’re left high and dry.”
“I’m not saying even the senior coach should know but certainly the medicos, the psychologists and perhaps the football manager (should know).”
However, AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson said it was up to affected players to inform who they wanted to about their drug problem.
“The players said if we’re going to agree to this policy, we want to choose who we involve in helping support us in these sorts of situations,” Anderson told Triple M’s Hot Breakfast.
“We canvassed with the players the idea of compulsorily telling certain people within a club and it became very clear that we wouldn’t have a policy if we did require them.”
Do you think clubs and families of affected players should know when a first strike occurs?
