That's what happens when you have a bunch of druggies in the game and people willing to help them.

Bbc breakfast doing a big build up now,anyway back to the story in the paper its one of many huge scandals this current rfl as over seen and we carry on regardless

Yeah cos that's why every other sport gets the same treatment

why are they just reporting it now? all this came out last december.

Watched the BBC breakfast piece, still wondering why Mike Cooper from Warrington has changed his name to Mike Hooper, just so similar i don't see why he's done it.

Did this happen in another sport?

If this kind of thing happens in RL you can't expect anything less. You can whinge all you like about the media but they are always going to chase controversial things over run of the mill match previews so if you give them a leg up by covering up drug users you are asking for it.

Breaking news right there. From December.

There is absolutely no reason for them to run that story apart from to discredit RL, and on our biggest weekend of the season so far.

Absolutely no coincidence.

The way the RL fans play the victim card, you'd think that newpapers never, ever reported scandals from other sports. I'm pretty sure that I've read a hell of a lot about the England RU team's antics in New Zealand, Bloodgate, the England football captain being charged with racially aggrevated crime and match fixing in cricket fairly recently.

looks like a union biased paper trying to doa bit of mud slinging at RL, possibly because the magic weekend is getting more attention than the england v babas on the tv!

Not 6 months after the event though. What exactly is it that they're reporting this morning? That there were some players who took drugs last season, and that all of the people caught and responsible have been banned? Which was also reported, with great delight, by the Daily Mail 6 months ago.

The big difference is those sports get day-to-day coverage as well. Whereas the Independent has dispensed with Dave Hadfield's full time services and appears to have no reference to the Magic Weekend today.

So the RL coverage pattern is tiny bit squeezed in a corner every third day... HUGE SPLASH NEGATIVE STORY one day... back to the tiny corner again for the next 6 months.

The timing of the article does seem rather churlish, but it's the people responsible for the scandal that should bear the brunt of the criticism. Don't shoot the messenger and all that jazz.

We can't blame the RFL for players being idiots and taking drugs/using banned substances!

It clearly is, because I didn't even realise the yawnion mob were playing this weekend.

all old news just dragged back up by the independent to coincide with the magic weekend. no one is denying there was a scandal but the timing of the article (which reveals nothing new in the last 6 months) stinks

don't buy the independent

Very true, but the RFL should stand up for the sport in cases like this.

There must be a media guy up at Red Hall who should contact the press and issue a statement that this was 6 months ago, the people involved have been dealt with as per the terms of the agreements with the doping agency etc etc and then plug the good work that the sport does in the communities and the magic weekend.

I'm not sure it would even help. We all know what papers are like when publishing apologies or corrections to stories.

Good to hear 5Live completely ignore Magic Weekend on their sports bulletins I heard this morning. Not just the papers then!

The article was well written if anyone bothered to read it.

Had the story been put in today i would have been a little annoyed but doing it yesterday bears no fault. The Indy might have thought they had a new angle on it or Fitzgibbon being their USP in the article. There has been much worse stories, see the huge amount of coverage the Bloodgate got.

Get on with your lives!

To think that somebody has been paid wages to spend 5 mins on the Internet and cut and paste a story.

A bit pathetic really

Next week expect an exclusive on the 'Gleeson and Long' betting scandal

On Tuesday morning on BBC Radio 1, the 'sports' bulletin mentioned the Liverpool coach's job, something about gymnastics, and that a person called Will Eye Ham was carrying the Olympic flame. No mention of the Leeds vs Saints game. CHris Moyles is an absolute fairy; comes from Yorkshire and doesn't like RL.

He also looks EXACTLY like the guy who owns and runs Les's fish bar on albert road in widnes. strange but true.

I reckon no other sport in history has pandered to one media figure as much as our game has to Moyles

Rugby league does shoot itself in the foot though.

This morning Sean Long was supposed to be special guest on Gordon Burns radio show. However he failed to turn up. Hence Salford reds and the Rugby League have wasted probably a good 10 mins or so talking about the magic weekend and rugby League in general.

It really is embarrassing listening to the radio and hearing Gordon Burns say "we were supposed to be speaking to ex RL legend Sean Long but unfortunately he hasnt turned up. If anyone knows were he is can you let him know he is supposed to be doing a radio show".

If ever there was a match made in disorganised, dysfunctional hell, it was Sean Long and Salford City Reds.