Munster, The Money Pit Province 2019/2020

[hugonaut]

He has.

My point was that he is fragile - not a word any player wants to be damned with. But you can't avoid it when you look at his injury record.

2016-17 [ankle surgery - Dec 2016]
2017-18 [wrist surgery - Nov 2017]
2018-19 [hamstring - 11 weeks total, Feb-Apr]
2019-20 [ankle surgery, wrist surgery, ankle surgery - Aug 2019, Jan 2020, Feb 2020]

That's a hell of a lot of ankle and wrist injuries. There's not a huge amount of muscle around those joints to strengthen and stabilise them and take stress off the ligaments, so I am quite pessimistic about his chances of staying injury free in the future.

Hugo - do you think position has any part to play. If someone is "fragile" (or let's put it another way - is like a thoroughbred and needs to managed carefully), does the 10 vs 15 debate come back into it?

I always thought the added time at 15 allows him have a bigger impact - in some ways he was the best fullback Munster had. But do you think fullback might protect against the ankle / wrist injuries?

He probably takes less contact in an average game at No15, but if he's competing for high balls and landing hard I'd imagine he'd be more at risk than most with regards to his ankle; Ferris said that coming down from lineouts was the thing that was worst for his bad ankle [that was the injury that led to his retirement, rather than his knees]. Besides, Carbery has been pretty insistent that he wants to play No10.

Maybe I'm wrong and he has just been unlucky with injuries thus far.

[ronk]

Bad luck is possible. He's been injured within a few games of an injury comeback and he's raced back for big games.

Spread of injuries isn't important. Merely having timing issues after a spell without playing is enough for some people (I learnt that one slowly and painfully).

[wixfjord]

Munster's James Cronin banned for one month after anti-doping violation
https://www.the42.ie/james-cronin-munst ... /#comments

Crazy story.

Following the subsequent investigation, an independent judicial officer, Antony Davies, accepted evidence that the failed test was due to “a dispensing error by the pharmacy and that the anti-doping violation was entirely unintentional.”

[blockhead]

Another Munster PED story eh?
WADA want to have another look at this "dog ate my homework" explanation.
Having a bunch of Saffers in charge does not help the optics either.

[neiliog93]

The two substances he failed the test for are corticosteroids, not anabolic androgenic steroids. The former are anti-inflammatories and would have very small if any performance-enhancing effects. Very, very different to anything anabolic. I also can't imagine a registered pharmacist would risk their livelihood by lying about a mistakenly disbursing them to him?

[wixfjord]

Yeah it seems very unlikely that there's anything to this.

But that won't stop Kimmage talking about it like they found forty kilos of heroin in the Munster gym in UL.

[CiaranIrl]

[CiaranIrl]

You don't need to be Kimmage to smell something rotten here.

“The pharmacy dispensed medication to him which was intended for another customer.”

1. The odds of that are immensely low. How often do you think that happens? Plenty of people are severely allergic to certain drugs. It would cause death.

Cronin instead received Germentin and Prednesol, a substance prohibited by the EPCR, which was prescribed for another person. Cronin took five Prednesol the day before the game, and four more the morning of the game.

2. On what basis? That was the dosage recommdation for what exactly? Who takes antibiotics like that? Was he not surprised that he got two drugs instead of one? Did he read nothing on the print out, like the customer name?

It strikes me as a pretty absurd series of events.

[wixfjord]

Where is that bit of maths from

Utter horse shite!

[wixfjord]

Prednesol isn't an antibiotic, it's a steroid used with antibiotics that's taken in divided dosage. So they're usually 5mg tabs, you normally take 20-30mg first day and gradually reduce. An adult can take up to 100mg in a day or something like that.

The pharmacy making a mistake has been admitted by the pharmacy and corroborated. That's a HUGE admittance and clearly a major error. So do you reckon that Munster paid them off or what?

Cronin has to take blame, but it's not a '50 billion to one' chance or whatever that says.

[CiaranIrl]

Prednesol isn't an antibiotic, it's a steroid used with antibiotics that's taken in divided dosage. So they're usually 5mg tabs, you normally take 20-30mg first day and gradually reduce. An adult can take up to 100mg in a day or something like that.

The pharmacy making a mistake has been admitted by the pharmacy and corroborated. Do you reckon that Munster paid them off or what?

Cronin has to take blame, but it's not a '50 billion to one' chance or whatever that says.

Ah the picture is obviously a joke. That doesn't mean I'm not very suspicious.

I know Prednesol is a steroid. If you were prescribed amoxicillin and you read the packet and it said to take 5 in one go and 3 together in the morning, would you not be surprised?

I haven't the faintest notion what is going on, and it's certainly not my job to explain what happened. But I do know it's an absurd confluence of events that another person called James Cronin was going to collect a prescription that very same day, then the pharmacy mixed the orders up, then he takes away a prescription for two drugs, not one, then he doesn't read what it says, then he takes a dosage that would be insane for a big standard antibiotic (which is what he says he expected to be taking).

[hugonaut]

Prednesol isn't an antibiotic, it's a steroid used with antibiotics that's taken in divided dosage. So they're usually 5mg tabs, you normally take 20-30mg first day and gradually reduce. An adult can take up to 100mg in a day or something like that.

The pharmacy making a mistake has been admitted by the pharmacy and corroborated. That's a HUGE admittance and clearly a major error. So do you reckon that Munster paid them off or what?

Cronin has to take blame, but it's not a '50 billion to one' chance or whatever that says.

To be honest, it seems plausible to me and having read the report he's got a lot of evidence to back up his story. It's a big mistake from the pharmacy, because if you're giving the wrong drugs to a seriously ill and elderly patient rather than an absolute bull of a twenty-something you could have done a lot more damage than a rap across the knuckles from EPCR.

I was on something similar back in January. I had a bad dose of the flu in late December/early January which just kept on getting worse and worse and I was so run down that I eventually got pneumonia. I was put on a pretty massive and very long dose of antibiotics and a load of little steroid pills. I think it was something like 4no. every 4 hours for five days or something like that.

The EPCR verdict is right enough. It was an honest mistake, but he was careless and showed no sense of responsibility for what he was taking.

[wixfjord]

Prednesol isn't an antibiotic, it's a steroid used with antibiotics that's taken in divided dosage. So they're usually 5mg tabs, you normally take 20-30mg first day and gradually reduce. An adult can take up to 100mg in a day or something like that.

The pharmacy making a mistake has been admitted by the pharmacy and corroborated. Do you reckon that Munster paid them off or what?

Cronin has to take blame, but it's not a '50 billion to one' chance or whatever that says.

Ah the picture is obviously a joke. That doesn't mean I'm not very suspicious.

I know Prednesol is a steroid. If you were prescribed amoxicillin and you read the packet and it said to take 5 in one go and 3 together in the morning, would you not be surprised?

I haven't the faintest notion what is going on, and it's certainly not my job to explain what happened. But I do know it's an absurd confluence of events that another person called James Cronin was going to collect a prescription that very same day, then the pharmacy mixed the orders up, then he takes away a prescription for two drugs, not one, then he doesn't read what it says, then he takes a dosage that would be insane for a big standard antibiotic (which is what he says he expected to be taking).

[CiaranIrl]

To be honest, it seems plausible to me and having read the report he's got a lot of evidence to back up his story. It's a big mistake from the pharmacy, because if you're giving the wrong drugs to a seriously ill and elderly patient rather than an absolute bull of a twenty-something you could have done a lot more damage than a rap across the knuckles from EPCR.

I was on something similar back in January. I had a bad dose of the flu in late December/early January which just kept on getting worse and worse and I was so run down that I eventually got pneumonia. I was put on a pretty massive and very long dose of antibiotics and a load of little steroid pills. I think it was something like 4no. every 4 hours for five days or something like that.

The EPCR verdict is right enough. It was an honest mistake, but he was careless and showed no sense of responsibility for what he was taking.

It's too much for me to take at face value not to be very suspicious. Another person called James Cronin just happened to be collecting a prescription for steroids the same day that a professional athlete with the same name was collecting something else, and then that same professional athlete thought nothing of what would be an insane dosage of two drugs for what he thought would be one antibiotic? I'm repeating myself here, but that's very weird.

I mean, there's several of us here now that know what Prednesol is and what a dosage for that would look like (5, then 3 then 1 over three days). A professional athlete would be more clueless about it than we are, is it?

[hugonaut]

To be honest, it seems plausible to me and having read the report he's got a lot of evidence to back up his story. It's a big mistake from the pharmacy, because if you're giving the wrong drugs to a seriously ill and elderly patient rather than an absolute bull of a twenty-something you could have done a lot more damage than a rap across the knuckles from EPCR.

I was on something similar back in January. I had a bad dose of the flu in late December/early January which just kept on getting worse and worse and I was so run down that I eventually got pneumonia. I was put on a pretty massive and very long dose of antibiotics and a load of little steroid pills. I think it was something like 4no. every 4 hours for five days or something like that.

The EPCR verdict is right enough. It was an honest mistake, but he was careless and showed no sense of responsibility for what he was taking.

It's too much for me to take at face value not to be very suspicious. Another person called James Cronin just happened to be collecting a prescription for steroids the same day that a professional athlete with the same name was collecting something else, and then that same professional athlete thought nothing of what would be an insane dosage of two drugs for what he thought would be one antibiotic? I'm repeating myself here, but that's very weird.

I mean, there's several of us here now that know what Prednesol is and what a dosage for that would look like (5, then 3 then 1 over three days). A professional athlete would be more clueless about it than we are, is it?

I think the answer is yes, he's more clueless than we are. On the other hand, maybe I'm being naive.

Reading the report, I was struck once again by how much of a bubble these guys live in, how cosseted they are. Free medical care [rather than a €60+ bill for a GP], instant access to your regular doctor, prescription emailed to the pharmacy for you to pick up [so you don't waste time in your 5-hour working day], cost of the prescription probably picked up by the organisation etc.

It's not their fault and it probably makes sense for the organisation, but there's a part of me that thinks that it's no wonder that so many of them have a hard time adjusting to their next occupation after their last rugby contract. They're institutionalised/infantilised.

[Xanthippe]

I just hope the other James Cronin wasn’t penicillin allergic! If I was mistakenly given penicillin instead of a steroid it could be very dangerous.

[Dave Cahill]

I think the answer is yes, he's more clueless than we are. On the other hand, maybe I'm being naive. .

Professional sportspersons, soccer and rugby players in particular, are in many ways, idiots. They aren't stupid, but they are, as you say clueless. They enter a system in their early to mid teens (and in some cases even younger than that) that is designed to infantilise them. There are guys who when they retire literally don't know how to buy groceries, don't know how to use cash, can't recognise the different denominations. They have everything done for them in areas that might in any way affect their performance - medical, nutritional, even down to getting dressed in the morning.

[neiliog93]

James Cronin is probably in the top 30-40 most common male names in Munster - I can well imagine this happening. You can't expect him to know normal antibiotic dosages either, as others have said a lot of these guys are cosseted and clueless. But the biggest factor is the pharmacy risking legal cases/massive disrepute by admitting the error.

[Twist]

You don't need to be Kimmage to smell something rotten here.

“The pharmacy dispensed medication to him which was intended for another customer.”

1. The odds of that are immensely low. How often do you think that happens?

I realise this is entirely anecdotal, but yeaterday I went to collect medication for my elderly parents from their local pharmacy and thats exactly what happened

[Oldschoolsocks]

I got oldschool’s polling card for the US presidential election - he’s registered in Virginia btw - I voted Hilary an his behalf