Chicken and egg situations . . .where would the politicians be without first referring to the humble chicken and egg to get their point across.

Take doping for example; you really do have to have doping procedures in place, namely comprehensive in and out of competition testing before I suppose you go about catching some of these fiendish dope cheats. Egg comes before the chicken . . . it's beginning to pay dividends. At least even the most innocent and wide-eyed are now aware of what is going on.

Let's just do a little audit of the major international sports around just so that we know what we are dealing with in terms of doping.

Let's start with cycling . . . corrupt in the most absolute form. The really big fish might not have been caught in the past because their chemists and masking agents are vastly superior to the authority's ability to detect . . . but some of the big boys have been caught.

The US of A has a kaleidoscope of drugfuelled competition. Baseball tops the list . . .

body shape tells you that they are nearly all on something and having read Jose Canseco's autobiography where he named names . . . lots of them . . . there wasn't one single writ. Tacit acceptance that that is the status quo. The game is rotten . . . it's not even policed and when the big boys are outed nothing is done but at least we all know. American Football . . . 90 per cent of all linemen, linebackers, defensive ends and maybe thinning out to 30-40 per cent for the skill players. Basketball too . . . a greater mix of substance abuse with a far higher ratio of 'recreational drugs' . . . but still they are dying on the courts in college and at the pros.

Swimming . . . tainted to the point of farce.

The disturbing element is that some countries seem to have established systematic doping programmes. At least we know what is going on and about one in 10 is arbitrarily plucked out and given a year or two ban.

Weightlifting . . . joke shop. Most of the martial arts and boxing . . . a high quotient of abuse here as well. Every now and again you hear that some bloke with a Bulgarian sounding name had testosterone levels which were 20 times the normal count . . . then you realise it was a bird. Track and field . . . rotten to the core . . . this house is an Osaka free-zone. Times, and distances are all down. Maybe they are all waiting for a Golden League event to break a world record. Get a hundred grand or so and of course the testing is far less rigid than at the major championships.

Tennis is the big one . . . the sport is addled.

Nandrolone seems to be the drug of choice.

Particularly the women's game . . . forget about the big muscle formation or the increased power . . . if you need to look for suspicions check the braces on their teeth and the spots.

Foundation can only do so much to hide the spotty faces. One of the players in particular on the men's circuit could play running back for the San Francisco 49ers.

The winter Olympics. The speed events:

something from Balco. The long distance stuff: EPO . . . also the drug of choice for rowers.

Soccer too . . . quite apart from the use of cocaine which I think is more than just a recreational drug. I think it has performanceenhancing capabilities if taken in moderation . . . ask anyone who has ever taken it. How many Italian and Spanish sides have been accused of systematic doping? Once again when the body shape changes . . . and changes dramatically . . . you have got to ask questions.

Horses and dogs. Well they don't have a choice.

Formula One and snooker. Beta blockers do wonders to calm the nerves.

Golf. When someone like Gary Player says he suspects that there could be four or five players taking performance enhancing drugs on the US tour . . . brave thing to say in a gentlemen's game, particularly when you are a god. Yet again check out the body shapes (except for John Daly). I wouldn't disagree with him.

So that's our little mini-audit done on the sporting world. I think I've managed to damn just about every major sport. In most cases though there are reasonable controls and policies in place and a goodly percentage of the big fish are caught, humiliated and then banned.

So that's the end of the article for this week . . . enjoy your Sunday lunch and we'll see you next week.

"Sorry?"

"Rugby union."

"Of course, I am clean as a whistle."

"My God, are you sure? Certain? This could blow the lid off rugby union forever! Go ahead and tell them."

"Me?"

"Alright."

Hang on to your pants folks this is the big cahoona. In 2005 Edwin Shimenga . . . you read it right . . . had an adverse analytical finding for the prohibited substance Hydrochlorothiazide. Kenyan rugby is reeling after his twoyear ban. The IRB have gone into conclave to see if they can hold the game of rugby together after this devastating . . . nay, terminal blow . . . Shimenga shay it ain't sho.

I might be wrong but Edwin Shimenga and the Namibian player Roger Thompson are the only senior international players to be caught using performance-enhancing drugs since 2000.

Next week 600 rugby players gather together for the sixth Rugby World Cup. The body shape and physique of all of these players bears no resemblance to the first Rugby World Cup that I played in 1987 nor to the last in 1995, nor does it even come close to the average physique in the 2003 competition only four years ago. This group of athletes are without question the most dynamic group of athletes in the world. They have power, pace and physical conditioning which is unrivalled in comparison to a lot of the sports chronicled earlier in this piece. They have superior muscle formation and negligible body fat counts . . . which way to the beach? You've all seen the World Cup warm-up matches. Everyone of them is a physical phenomenon. And so you say . . .

every other code is rotten from the top down and yet this band of warriors are squeaky.

No senior international has been found guilty of a doping offence in any of the previous five World Cups or in the Six Nations for that matter. Amazing isn't it? The IRB is doing one hell of a job on its anti-doping programme. Funny so that Bernard Laporte should take out a spoon and start stirring.

"There is regular monitoring in France.

The player cannot dope himself . . . well he can, but he will be caught. But what is happening in New Zealand or in England? You cannot be sure of anything. The only certainty is that there are dope tests at international matches. But they are only on urine and you have to go further than that."

Laporte is lobbing some high calibre stones from his glasshouse but I have to say that I agree with him. If the IRB were serious about doping they would insist on blood samples as well as urine. If the players don't want to donate then they don't play . . . they are used to giving blood in any case, it shouldn't be an issue. The IRB have promised a strenuous testing programme at the World Cup . . . probably 10-12 weeks too late.

If I was a coach and I felt the need to juice my players up I would have taken them away for two to three weeks or so . . . a million miles from anywhere and go to work on them . . . do a six-week programme and have them humming by the time the cup is due. A lot of the serious teams did go away for high-intensity sessions . . . including Ireland. But I could say with reasonable certainty that to a man Ireland are clean. I can't say it about any of the other major contenders though.

It is stretching credibility to suggest that all players are clean but that is what is going to happen. The IRB will announce a drug-free World Cup and the rest of the world will look on and say "bollocks to that, blinkey".

For the purposes of credibility I hope they do catch someone eventually and that he is further up the food chain than Edwin Shimenga so that I can believe again.

LES BLEUS SET TO OPEN TOURNAMENT WITH A BANG WORLD CUP POOL D FRANCE v ARGENTINA Friday, Stade de France, 8.00 Live, TV3/Setanta Referee T Spreadbury (Eng) There'll be all sorts of shenanigans going on at the Stade de France before this World Cup opener and a fair bit during it as well we don't doubt. It will also hold bucket loads of significance for Ireland.

Firstly, it will offer Eddie O'Sullivan's men a proper look at the two teams that stand between them and the quarter-finals. Ireland, according to their coach at any rate, have been holding plenty back in the past couple of weeks. There'll be no room for either of these sides to put anything on ice though.

Secondly, the outcome of the game will also give Ireland a fair pointer as to what they need to achieve against Georgia and Namibia. World Cup rules state that if there's a tie at the top once all games have been played, the winner of the fixture between the two sides tied is given the nod. However, if three teams are level, then the pool winner and runner-up will be decided by points difference.

Therefore if France win on Friday, it's unlikely that there'll be a threeway tie at the top of the pool, meaning that it wouldn't matter all that much how many points Ireland notch up against the pool's minnows. If, however, the Pumas emerge victors you'd put your money on all three sides finishing level at the end of the pool (Argentina beat France, France beat Ireland, Ireland beat Argentina).

This would make the points scored against Georgia and Namibia extremely important. So at least Ireland will have a heads-up.

As for the game itself, Argentina have beaten France in four of their last five meetings and the very fact that most of the Pumas squad play in the Top 14 means that they won't necessarily view this as an away fixture. That said, it's difficult to look beyond France and their captain Rafael Ibanez (right) given their form. They've no injuries right now, unlike Argentina who have several doubts.