Suspended Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan now the key target in the ASADA probe
Rebecca Wilson, Josh Massoud & James Hooper
The Daily Telegraph
August 29, 2014 12:00AM
SUSPENDED Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan’s position at the Sharks remains under review by ASADA, with the NRL asking for an explanation about his refusal to accept any responsibility for the supplements shame of 2011.
With ASADA ruling the Cronulla players were “doped and duped”, the attention has switched to the Sharks coaching and support staff who were in positions of power when the performance-enhancing supplements regime was implemented.
While Cronulla Sharks boss Steve Noyce maintains Flanagan may have his 12-month suspension cut short to nine months and return to coaching at the club on September 17, both ASADA and the NRL are continuing to investigate Flanagan’s case.
Seven-time premiership-winning coach Wayne Bennett and North Queensland coach Paul Green have both voiced concerns about the way the Cronulla players were betrayed by people on the Cronulla coaching staff who they trusted.
Crucial to Flanagan’s position is several contradictory versions of events from key witnesses, namely ex-Cronulla head conditioner Trent Elkin, who Flanagan has repeatedly pointed the finger towards as the architect of the Sharks peptide program.
Elkin has told ASADA Flanagan had full knowledge of the supplements program and was present when some of the players were injected in a corporate box at Shark Park. Flanagan has repeatedly denied this.
In an email Flanagan sent to the Cronulla board on February 8 last year, the suspended Sharks coach claimed “Mr Dank’s involvement was never direct with the team”.
Yet as The Daily Telegraph illustrated last year, Fox Sports dressing room cameras from rounds 7, 8, 11 and 12 of 2011 show disgraced biochemist Stephen Dank inside the Sharks inner sanctum wearing a Cronulla polo shirt.
The reason the NRL has asked Flanagan to explain his argument comes from the suspended coach’s insistence he is blameless for what transpired, continuing to point the finger at Elkin as recently as last weekend.
Specifically, Flanagan continues to claim he got rid of Dank as soon as he found about the regime of injections, creams and tablets.
This contradicts an email obtained by The Daily Telegraph dated April 6, 2011, when Cronulla Sharks doctor David Givney warned Flanagan about Dank’s regime of performance-enhancing supplements.
Givney sent the email on April 6. Yet Flanagan and the Cronulla Sharks support staff allowed Dank to continue at the club until May 29 and as the Fox Sports cameras show, he was inside the Cronulla dressing room.
Other differing versions of events are also a bone of contention with NRL headquarters, with the independent report into the Sharks supplements shame claiming Flanagan was present when the players were instructed “not to tell anyone” about the new “top secret” regime.
The Daily Telegraph has confirmed ASADA is continuing to review the case of all the Cronulla Sharks support staff from the 11-week window in 2011, with the positions of Mark Noakes and Darren Mooney also under review.
The NRL confirmed as much in a media release it issued and then retracted last Saturday.
Under the ASADA code, Flanagan could be banned from returning to the NRL for up to four years if it is proven he had knowledge of the Cronulla supplements program and failed to act appropriately.
As Wayne Bennett said when the darkest day in Australian sport initially dawned, the buck stops with the head coach.
NRL boss Dave Smith, chief operating officer Jim Doyle, head of football Todd Greenberg and Integrity Unit boss Nick Weeks will review Flanagan’s appeal to have his suspension cut short by three months in the week of September 17.
