THE GAA AND DRUG TESTING: Seán Moran looks at the vexed issue of drug testing and argues that since there is no going back, those involved must make it work

Dope testing is the latest unwelcome intrusion into the GAA's world - as we saw in Thurles last weekend. Nobody doubts its intrusiveness but this is no different to what virtually all other elite athletes have to tolerate in the course of their disciplines.

And Gaelic players tend to forget that elite athletes are frequently more amateur than top hurlers and footballers in that they have to fend for themselves and prepare without a fraction of the infrastructural back-up available to the country's largest sports organisation.

It is, of course, a shock and an unpleasantly clinical experience to be taken from the field - especially one imagines for losing players - and led away through the crowds of well wishers and waiting media to some room where the players must remain until they have provided a sample.

Opposition to the whole idea within the GAA has been widespread and largely misplaced. Because the procedure is unpleasant doesn't mean it's unnecessary.

Methods of preparation are increasingly high-tech and the consumption of supplements to aid performance has become routine for many sportspeople. Maybe there isn't any inclination on the part of hurlers or footballers to cross the line but if other sports are any indication - and they are in every other area - that optimistic scenario is highly improbable.

The purpose of testing is to ensure that players are protected against both the temptation of obsessive coaches and unfair competition. These tests are to ensure a level playing field.

Disagreement with what is happening is based on a few arguments. Two are peripheral to the central issue but vitally important all the same.

Firstly, the architecture of GAA grounds is a disaster for this sort of exercise. Outside of Croke Park and a handful of other grounds, venues don't even have isolated dressing-rooms, let alone easy access to a facility that could serve as a Testing Station.

When the hurlers of Waterford made their ill-considered protest last Sunday, they had already had to battle through legions of excited supporters, officials and media. It would be hard to blame either of the selected players for not wanting to run that gauntlet again. That must be dealt with, but even as things stand, a player can wait for up to 90 minutes before proceeding to the station, by which stage things might have cooled down a little.

The second complaint is the most serious: that education and instruction procedures have been grossly inadequate. A number of medical officers to county teams have made this point. When the tests were introduced last autumn, both Tipperary and Galway provided samples after the All-Ireland hurling final only after strenuous protest. It has to be admitted that preparation for testing has not been ideal.

Among the good ideas floated in this respect was Kilkenny team doctor Bill Cuddihy's suggestion that a medical commissioner be appointed before testing began.

It has also been proposed that an information unit should travel the country to address county panels and officers and take any questions that these seminars might generate or that an experimental period should be introduced during which players would be tested but not subject to the Anti-Doping Code.

Preparations fell short of this but it has to be said that units within the GAA have been in no hurry to inform themselves. The poor response to the seminars organised by Croke Park - as mentioned by Dublin football manager Tommy Lyons on RTÉ last Sunday - testify to that.

Waterford county chairman Paddy Joe Ryan complained to the Examiner newspaper yesterday that the GAA seminar had clashed with team manager Justin McCarthy's book launch. In the same paper Waterford captain Fergal Hartley admitted that he took medication the night before without knowing whether it was proscribed or not.

Both of these responses indicate how painful the GAA at all levels finds this new additional responsibility. Why should you be expected to attend an inconvenient meeting? Why should you have to agonise over what to take for a headache? It's easy to sympathise with people caught up in a complex situation for which they haven't been adequately prepared.

But it's not so easy to sympathise with the recklessness of Waterford's response. It's 10 months since testing was agreed and nearly nine since it was introduced. In that time, to judge by Waterford reaction to the testing last Sunday, neither the captain not the chairman have acquainted themselves with the guidelines to any appreciable extent. Surely it can't have taken nearly a year to obtain a list of acceptable medication.

And what possessed players to risk 12-month suspensions for the sake of a futile protest - presuming they were even aware that this was the sanction?

Certainly the GAA could have done more in relation to instructing players and counties, but dope testing is here in the real world. It is no longer good enough for counties to complain about Croke Park's shortcomings while doing nothing or very little about it themselves.