Northern Edition
Select Edition
Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

'Social' rugby player who claimed he unwittingly let therapist inject him with anabolics banned

A social rugby player has been handed a four year ban after he tested positive for anabolic steroids which he claims were inadvertently injected into his body by a sports therapist.

ADVERTISEMENT

Dean Ashfield, registered as a player for Clevedon RFC, has been banned from all sport for four years following an in-competition test on 15 March 2017.

He is banned from 10 April 2017, the date of his provisional suspension, until 9 April 2021.

Mr Ashfield tested positive for three substances, Drostanolone, Trenbolone and Clenbuterol. All three anabolic agents are non-specified substances included on the 2017 World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.

A brick-layer by trade, he was charged with a breach of World Rugby regulation 21.2.1, “Presence of a Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers in an Athlete’s Sample”. He admitted the charge and was handed a four-year ban by the National Anti-Doping Panel.”

Continue reading below…

Video Spacer

While he admitted liability, he attempted to explain how the substances found their way into his body unintentionally.

He said he had sought therapy following a knee ligament reconstruction which had left him in severe and constant pain.

He testified that after not receiving relief from conventional treatment, he sought the help of a sports therapist who he said injected him with a fluid that he now believes to have contained the substances in question.

ADVERTISEMENT

He said that at the time he believed the injection to be some form of cortisone.

“The sports therapist mentioned that, given my acute pain, he could give me a shot to ease the pain in my back. I believed this would be some form of a cortisone injection and I agreed for him to give me a shot of the treatment. To be absolutely clear, we did not discuss the contents of the injection and I categorically did not have any idea what substances were to be introduced.

“I trusted the sports therapist and had no reason whatsoever to believe that the injection was going to be anything untoward; it was proposed as a routine pain relief treatment and I took him at his word, at a point in my life where I was desperate to reduce the pain.”

Following that single injection, he says that his back “felt a little better” and he was “able to continue fairly normally at work”. He had no further treatment and he evidently continued to play rugby.

ADVERTISEMENT

The report says that: “Perhaps unsurprisingly, the RFU was gravely sceptical about that explanation”.

RFU Anti-Doping and Illicit Drugs Programme Manager Stephen Watkins said: “This case demonstrates that there are serious consequences to doping.

“Beyond the performance-enhancing effects of steroids, there are significant health risks associated with their use, including kidney failure, liver damage and an increased risk of strokes and heart attacks.”

Video Spacer
ADVERTISEMENT
LIVE

Rugby Premier League - Matches 10 - 11

Pollock Loses Bill, Players Meet Their Roommates & Training in Portugal | Ep 1: The Ultimate Test

Top tackles in Lions Tests

Top 10 inspiring Lions speeches

United States of Rugby | Episode 1 – Welcome to Dawgtown

Top 10 Best Lions Tries of the 2000s

Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo vs Kubota Spears | Japan Rugby League One 2024/25 Final | Full Match Replay

Boks Office | Episode 42 | Investec Champions Cup Final Review

The Game that Made Jonah Lomu

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

I
IkeaBoy 10 minutes ago
How Leinster bullied the Bulls at Croke Park

Expert coaches exist across the land and the IRFU already funds plenty. Ulster own their academy and who owns Ulster?


If you go to school in the North and rugby/tag rugby isn’t even on the PE curriculum until 12/13 as opposed to 7 or 8 in Leinster, how is that the IRFU’s fault? Even then, it’s only certain schools in the North that will offer it. On what basis would they go up to the North (strictly speaking, another country in the eyes of some) and dictate their schools programme?


The ABs used to be light years ahead of the pack because their eventual test superstars had been playing structured, competitive rugby from an average age of 5/6! On top of kicking it around the yard from the age they could walk with their rugby mad parents and older siblings.


Have you somehow gotten the impression that the Leinster system is not working for Irish rugby? What is that based on? The SARU should just stop competing because despite their back to back RWC’s, all 4 of their URC teams aren’t contesting semi-finals every year?


A couple of mining towns basically provided a Welsh team in the 70’s that were unplayable. Queensland in the old Super 10 provided the spine of an Oz team that were the first to win multiple world cups and in the same decade. The ABs population density is well documented with 35% of the population living around one city.


Is England’s match day 23 equally represented by mid-counties players, tough as nails northerners, a couple from Cornwall, a pack of manc’s and a lone Geordie? Ever?

It’s cute they won’t relegate the Falcons but has a Geordie test player ever hit 50 caps?


It’s ok not to understand geography. It’s also ok not to understand sport. Not understanding the geography of sport is something different entirely.

265 Go to comments
f
fl 3 hours ago
Ex-Wallaby laughs off claims Bath are amongst the best in the world

I ultimately don’t care who the best club team in the world is, so yeah, lets agree to disagree on that.


I would appreciate clarity on a couple of things though:

Where did I contradict myself?

Saying “Trophies matter. They matter a lot. But so does winning games. So does making finals.” is entirely compatible with ranking a team as the best - over an extended period - when they have won more games and made more finals than other comparable teams. It would be contradictory for me to say “Trophies matter. They matter a lot. But so does winning games. So does making finals.” and then completely ignore Leinster record of winning games and making finals.


“You can get frustrated and say I am not reading what you write, but when you quote me, then your first line is to say thats true (what I wrote), but by the end of the paragraph have stated something different, thats where you contradict yourself.”

What you said (that I think trophies matter) is true, in that I said “Trophies matter. They matter a lot. But so does winning games. So does making finals.”. Do you understand that Leinster won more games and made more finals than any other (URC-based) team did under the period under consideration?


“Pointless comparison on Blackburn and Tottenham to this discussion as no-one includes them on a list of the best club. I would say that Blackburns title season was better than anything Tottenham have done in the Premier League. My reference to the league was that the team who finished second over two seasons are not better than the two other teams who did win the league each time. One of the best - of course, but not the best, which is relevant to my point here about Leinster, not comparing teams who won 30 years ago against a team that never won.”

I really don’t understand why you would think that this is irrelevant. You seem to be saying that winning trophies is the only thing that matters when assessing who is the best, but doesn’t matter at all when assessing who is 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.


“What I referred to in my Leinster wouldn’t say the were the best is your post earlier where you said Leinster were the best overall. You said that in two separate posts. Seasons dont work like that, they are individual. Unless the same team keeps winning then you can say they were the best over a period of time and group them, but thats not the case here.”

Well then we’ve just been talking at cross purposes. In that my position (that Leinster were the best team overall in 2022-2024) was pretty clear, and you just decided to respond to a different point (whether Leinster were the best team individually in particular years) essentially making the entire discussion completely pointless. I guess if you think that trophies are the only thing that matters then it makes sense to see the season as an individual event that culminates in a trophy (or not), whereas because I believe that trophies matter a lot, but that so does winning matches and making finals, it makes it easier for me to consider quality over an extended period.

24 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ ‘Joe’s generally a step ahead’: How Schmidt’s coaching tree branched into Lions brains trust ‘Joe’s generally a step ahead’: How Schmidt’s coaching tree branched into Lions brains trust
Search