Titans urine vials a 'jam jar'

Gold Coast Titans boss David May has defended his club after police confirm they found vials of urine at Skilled Park.

North Queensland Cowboys skipper Johnathan Thurston describes the finding of the ACC report as a sad day for sport, and backs any action from the NRL to clean up the game.

Rugby League Players' Association chairman David Garnsey discusses explosive allegations of wide-range doping in several sports, including NRL.

Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Griffin says his club have nothing to hide in relation to suspected doping and links to organised crime.

Police doing bomb sweep training at Skilled Park stadium found urine samples hidden in plumbing in a dressing room (above). Picture: Ross Michael Source: Gold Coast Bulletin

Skilled Park, general pics of the stadium Picture: Ross Michael Source: Gold Coast Bulletin

UPDATE: SUSPICIOUS 'vials' of urine found by police in the Gold Coast Titans dressing rooms were in fact a single jam jar around five years old, the NRL club says.

Titans CEO David May has ruled out a connection to the club and says the case is closed.

He fronted a media conference at Titans pre-season training this morning after The Courier-Mail revealed police had found the urine hidden in plumbing in the club dressing rooms at Skilled Park, Robina, on Monday during a bomb detection exercise ahead of next year's G20 summit in Brisbane.

Mr May said he had been advised by the stadium manager that urine was contained in a 'very old' jam jar.

"The police have confirmed that it's not a matter they'll be taking any further," he said.

"The jar is, as we've been told, around about five years old. There's hundreds of teams that have been through that change room and just statistically, the chance that it's a Titans issue is very small."

Mr May said the the Australian Sport Anti Doping Authority had not contacted the club but he would welcome any testing of its players.

"Nobody in the sporting world or in the (anti-doping) regime or in the police is actually associating this issue with us so we haven't been contacted and we don't expect to be," he said.

Mr May was asked if he could categorically rule out any Titans link to the jam jar.

"There is nobody in the club that has any knowledge of anything that's related to that," he said.

"As far as all of the information I've been given, there's no connection at all between that jar and the club.

"The case is .... closed."

Mr May said the Titans adhered to the highest anti-doping standards and had a 'zero tolerance' on drugs.

Police found the urine hidden in dressing room plumbing at the Gold Coast Titans home ground during a bomb-sweep exercise.

The suspicious discovery was revealed yesterday as Australia's biggest drugs-in-sport scandal erupted.

Police sources told The Courier-Mail the container was found stashed in the Titans home dressing rooms at Skilled Park stadium, Robina, by officers undertaking bomb detection training ahead of next year's G20 summit in Brisbane.

Earlier, the Titans' longest-serving high-performance expert said he was shocked by the discovery and insisted the NRL club was "drug-free".

Respected strength-and-conditioning guru Chris McLellan told News Limited he had no involvement.

While the Titans are a major tenant of Skilled, a slew of domestic and international sporting teams have used the venue in recent months, headlined by rugby's World Sevens tournament in October.

McLellan, who left the club at the end of last season, joined Gold Coast for their NRL debut in 2007 and is adamant the urine uncovered was not associated with himself or anybody at the Titans.

"I don't know where the vials have come from," he said today.

"... but I can confirm they have nothing to do with the Titans.

"I was with the club from day one so I knew everything that went on with sports-science there and the Titans are drug-free.

"I have absolutely no idea where these vials have come from and why they would even be there. I am baffled by it.

"There doesn't seem to have been any identification on the vials, is it an ASADA vial or one specific to a certain club?"

The discovery is believed had been referred to the Australian Sports Anti Doping Authority (ASADA).

The NRL club's operations boss, Ian Buchanan, said the discovery was a mystery and the urine could have been put there by any sporting team that used the ground.

"The Rugby Sevens were played there in October and there was a rugby Test between Australia and Argentina in September," he said.

"There is more than one tenant at Skilled Park and I certainly don't think it's fair to point the finger at us.

"It (the urine) could even have been left there from the soccer days (when the now-defunct Gold Coast United played at Skilled Park)."

McLellan, a former Broncos lower grader, confirmed the Titans regularly performed urine testing for hydration purposes but said almost every sample was taken at the nearby Centre of Excellence training facility.

He added the Titans briefly conducted blood tests, but only to gauge "muscle-damage markers".

McLellan said he would be surprised if there was anything sinister in the discovery of urine vials.

"There has been a heap of traffic there (Skilled Park) in recent months. They had the World Sevens rugby tournament there so hundreds of players used the stadium, I honestly believe it was something innocent," he said.

"There is nothing you can do with urine. You don't store it to use it or avoid any detection. It is a waste product so there would be no point hiding it.

"If you found vials of a banned substance, then you have a major issue. But urine vials are really only used for hydration testing.

"I would say someone has forgotten to put it in the disposable bin and it's been left behind.

"In my time there, we didn't even do urine testing at Skilled Park.

"The only urine testing we did was for hydration and when we did it, we would do it off-site. We mainly did it at the Centre of Excellence and sometimes on game days we would do it at team meetings at surf clubs.

"The only other urine testing that was done by the club was done as part of the in-house drug-testing requirements under the NRL's rules and regulations.

"The testing vials we used had serial numbers so if one was lost it would be easily identifiable.

"Even with our in-house tests, I would label vials with players' initials so these vials clearly have nothing to do with the Titans."

Of the blood testing, McLellan said: "The only blood testing we did involved taking some fingerprint samples for a number of research projects. But as a standard practice, no, we didn't do it every week.

"We did not do DNA testing, the testing we did was to measure muscle-damage markers in their blood, that's all.

"There was nothing sinister to it whatsoever."

Mr Buchanan said police had advised Titans CEO David May about the discovery as a "heads-up".

"They said it was found during a bomb sweep," he said.

"There was nothing formal about it. They didn't ask for a 'please explain'. How could they when there are so many teams that use the venue?"

Skilled Park, general pics of the stadium Picture: Ross Michael Source: Gold Coast Bulletin

Mr Buchanan said strict ASADA protocols surrounding drug testing made it virtually impossible to switch samples.

Players were followed into the dressing room by drug testers and monitored before being taken to a separate room to provide a sample.

"Every move they make is watched, to the extent of them actually urinating into the bottle," Mr Buchanan said.

The Titans played their last 2012 home game at Skilled Park in early September and resumed training in November.

Players are drug-tested in the off-season but Mr Buchanan said they did not normally train at Skilled Park.

A spokesman for Skilled Park operator Stadiums Queensland said the Queensland Police Service had not advised of the urine vial find.

The Courier-Mail sought comment from ASADA but it was not forthcoming last night.

The Titans earlier released a statement pledging the club's full support into the NRL's investigation into doping and integrity in the wake of the damning Australian Crime Commission investigation.

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