Troubled Stevens' failed drug test shows he fell for the showbiz side of the game

Rugby Union / Ralph Ellis / 21 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

Ralph Ellis on the surprise news that Bath prop Matt Stevens has failed a drug test.

There is always a nagging worry about the relationship between drugs and sport. It's obvious, really. The people who deal in these things target those with money. Young, fit, wealthy and hugely confident young men are always going to be a soft target to suck into the culture that experimenting with something like cocaine is only a bit of fun. And sheer logic tells you that somewhere along the way, somebody is going to be tempted.

It happened most notably in football with Paul Merson. Mark Bosnich was another who fell into the trap - Paul Gascoigne too. And now almost as proof that rugby has followed football into the world of glamour and money it's happened to Bath and England prop Matt Stevens.

The revelation yesterday that he had been axed from the England squad for failing a drugs test came as a major shock. This was, after all, a player who had become one of the glamour boys of the sport. He combined his role as a powerful human wrecking ball in the heart of the scrums with the bubbling personality to appear on X Factor with Sharon Osbourne taking responsibility for honing his singing voice. She did it so well he ended up getting a personal audience with Nelson Mandela. Sadly it seems that he got introduced to a bit too much of the showbiz party life at the same time.

Stevens has at least done the brave thing and fronted up to his failures. Caught out by a random test after Bath's European Cup tie with Glasgow some 11 days before Christmas, he faced the cameras yesterday to confess his folly.

"It's distressing talking about this," he told Sky Sports News in an interview that's reproduced in all this morning's papers.

"When I think of how much time and effort so many people have put into my career, I have thrown it away with irresponsible behaviour.

"Like with any drug problem you don't know it's happening, then it mounts up, and before you know it you are sat there with a problem, with an illness. It started where a couple of times you would take it after a big night out with friends. It wasn't a big deal. But that is the problem with drugs, it so quickly becomes a big deal. I owe it to everyone to admit that. I am truly sorry."

They are words that should be cut out from the papers and pinned up in every dressing room of every elite football and rugby club. Neither sport has a huge problem - in fact more and more top players are not even touching alcohol these days. But there will always be one or two tempted to experiment and what has happened to Stevens must act as a warning.

In the short term it's a shattering blow to Bath and will damage them before Sunday's big Heineken Cup clash with Toulouse. Lay them at [1.97]. It won't help England's Six Nations campaign too much either. Instead of their star man in the prime of his career at prop they could end up with 35-year-old farmer Julian White stepping into the breach.

Five things you might not know about Matt Stevens

1. Born and brought up in Durban, he qualified to play for England through his father who emigrated to South Africa to run hotels and game parks.

2. He went to £8,000-a-year Kearnsney College, one of South Africa's most exclusive public schools

3. He played for South Africa at junior, Under 18 and 19 levels but then moved to Bath to study for a degree in politics and economics

4. He raised £125,000 for Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund, and in 2006 was flown to meet Mandela who wanted to say his thanks in person

5. He's well known at Bath for wearing pink shirts and reckons "it takes a real man to wear pink"