LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Last month it was hailed as the blackest day in Australian sport. Now the drugs-in-football scandal has reached new depths, with the Cronulla Sharks NRL club engulfed in a crisis of doping allegations.
On Friday, the Sharks suspended their coach and sacked four of their most senior support staff, blaming managerial failings over the handling of the ongoing investigation by the sports doping agency, ASADA.
Caro Meldrum-Hanna has been investigating the story behind the story.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA, REPORTER: Game day at Shark Park. For Cronulla fans, there's a feeling of defiance to the start of the 2013 season.
CRONULLA SHARKS FAN: We're standing strong and proud.
CRONULLA SHARKS FAN II: No-one should've been sacked over it.
CRONULLA SHARKS FAN III: It's a witch-hunt, you know, and the Sharks are being crucified for this.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: On the field, evidence of the crisis currently enveloping the club. This small but pointed statement, a handwritten tribute on the armband of captain Paul Gallen, to the Sharks staffers sacked by the Cronulla board on Friday night. Football manager Darren Mooney, trainer Mark Noakes, physiotherapist Konrad Schultz and David Givney, the Sharks' loyal team doctor of 28 years.
(March 8): It was with great regret that the board has taken this course of action, but it does so given the serious nature of management failures identified.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: The five men who've found themselves suddenly on the outer are at a loss to explain.
MARK NOAKES, FORMER SHARKS TRAINER: To say I'm hurt would be an understatement. I'm guessing I'm just trying to look at reasons why they did it to all of us, whether it be them trying to save their skins, I'm not sure. That's just me and it's - I'm just trying to come to terms with it. So, I don't know if I am just collateral damage and I just hope, you know, eventually sanity will prevail and everything'll come out and in a perfect world hopefully things might happen, I might be reinstated, you don't know. ... All these things that they say - allege happened back in 2011, we're not knowing that anything was going wrong so it's not like to keep 'em in the dark about 'cause we didn't know anything was wrong.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: The question is: how has it come to this? To understand the mess today, you have to turn back the clock to when it all began: the first two months of the 2011 season, the exact period of time sports scientist and biochemist Steve Dank was in contact with the club.
Last month, Steve Dank broke his silence on 7.30. Today, Steve Dank was not available for an interview to respond to the latest developments at Cronulla. But last month, 7.30 asked him about his work with the Sharks before crossing over to the AFL in 2012.
(Feb. 11) Cronulla officials have recently publicly stated that they dismissed you and declined your services, and I think one remark was that they're thankful they did that before you got your claws in. How do you respond to that?
STEPHEN DANKE, SPORTS SCIENTIST: Ah, well, not sure, really. I mean, I'd just spent half a season there and we sorta did some good work and then basically, you know, they felt that the program itself was no longer of consequence to them, so - and that was fine. I mean, I had other clinical work to do at the time, so ..
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: Steve Dank was introduced to Cronulla at the start of the 2011 season, working alongside then high performance manager Trent Elkin. Dank began to casually advise on player nutrition, introducing the Sharks to this company, Australia Sports Nutrition, or ASN, who began to supply the Sharks with Humanofort tablets containing a Beta Thymosin 4, a peptide used to promote muscle repair. Dank was also providing players with the sleeping tablet Mersyndol and was injecting players with what's believed to be Peptide CJC-1295, a synthetic substance designed to promote human growth hormone.
JASON SIEGLER, SPORT AND EXERCISE SCIENCE, UNI. OF WESTERN SYDNEY: From what I understand, it certainly looks to be a synthetically created steroid. Well, I don't want to say steroid; a synthetically created peptide, which may act in that similar light to a steroid in terms of muscle growth.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: 7.30 has been told that the alleged injections of CJC-1295 were being given to players in early May, 2011 without the knowledge of key staff, including team doctor David Givney. When the injections were discovered two weeks later, an internal meeting was called with key staff confronting Dank and performance manager Elkin about the existence of the injections and asking that no more injections would be given.
Weeks later, bottles of a substance marked for animal use only were discovered to have been administered to players again without the knowledge of team doctor Givney. It's believed the substance is Gamma Oryzanol, an extract from rice bran oil used on horses to build muscle.
When key Sharks staff discovered the use of supplements that aren't designed for human consumption in a final meeting at the end of May, 2011, they severed ties with Dank. Steve Dank has told 7.30 that none of the substances he used on players at Cronulla were listed as banned or prohibited by ASADA or WADA at the time and that he operated within the rules at all times.
If peptides aren't banned at the time that they're being administered to a player on any given team, is that not just clever sports science?
JASON SIEGLER: It's certainly pushing the boundaries. I think one of the issues that all doping regulators or governing bodies are struggling with right now is keeping up with the science.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: How does the scientific community then really in general and including yourself view substances like this?
JASON SIEGLER: Certainly would probably fall under the category of believing that it's a performance enhancer and probably an unethical performance enhancer.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: Remarkably, ASADA has never sought to interview Dank until last week when they wrote to his lawyers on 4th March.
ASADA LETTER TO DANK'S LAWYERS (male voiceover): "The assistance of Mr Dank is sought on a voluntary basis."
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: ASADA has no power to compel anyone to sit down for an interview. ASADA was seeking to question Dank about his activities with five teams from the NRL and AFL.
ASADA LETTER TO DANK'S LAWYERS (male voiceover): His, "Role and engagement with the Manly Rugby League Club, Cronulla Rugby League Club, Geelong Australian Football Club, Gold Coast Suns Australian Football Club, Essendon Australian Football Club."
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: Steve Dank has officially declined ASADA's request for an interview. The former head of ASADA, Richard Ings, says the authority examined Dank's activities at NRL club Manly several years ago and cleared him of any wrongdoing.
You would agree that Steve Dank isn't a new name to sport in Australia?
RICHARD INGS, FORMER CEO, ASADA: Oh, I'm very familiar with Steve Dank. When I was the CEO of ASADA, it was during a period when there were questions which were raised about certain training techniques happening at the Manly Rugby League Club in Sydney.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: And what did you discover about Steve Dank then?
RICHARD INGS: Well I don't want to go into specifics about Mr Dank, but the techniques that were being used were examined at the time and they were found not to be banned under the World Anti-Doping Agency code.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: The substances in question at Cronulla were not listed as specifically prohibited on the ASADA website in 2011, but they are now.
RICHARD INGS: The peptides that we're talking about are clearly banned substances. They're clearly defined on the list of banned substances. Remembering that the list of banned substances is extremely extensive, it cannot cover every single banned substance by name, because there are always new substances, there are experimental substances that athletes may be using, so there are catch-all categories to cover certain types of doping. ... These players need to take this issue seriously and double and triple check everything that they are taking before they take it.
CARO MELDRUM-HANNA: Last night at Shark Park, players and fans celebrated a timely win, hoping the team will continue to weather the storm.
LEIGH SALES: Caro Meldrum-Hanna with that report.
