Former Panthers general manager of football Phil Gould has admitted he's struggling to understand why Penrith centre Brent Naden played with cocaine in his system on grand final day.
Naden on Tuesday was provisionally suspended under the NRL's Anti-doping Policy.
The NRL asserts that Naden returned a positive A-sample for metabolites of cocaine following a test conducted after the Panthers' grand final loss to the Storm, in which he featured off the bench.
Gould, who spent nine years at the Panthers between 2011 and 2019, revealed the 24-year-old had often struggled with mental health issues at times.
With Naden finding himself in and out of coach Ivan Cleary's team during this year's finals series, the former NSW Blues coach said the "conjecture" of not knowing whether you're in the team could've impacted the centre's headspace.
"I hope to speak to him in the next couple of weeks just to reassure him that these things happen and there's no reason why he can't bounce back," Gould told Nine News.
"He does suffer from anxiety, nerves and feeling as though he belongs in the game and that team.
"I can imagine him having periods of downtime and depression and dealing with it – I guess around that time, with the pressure of finals football.
"His first finals campaign, conjecture as to whether or not he would be in or out of the team. These are the sort of things that could play heavily on his mind."
Gould said he was adamant that there was no malice or any attempt from Naden to gain a competitive advantage on the field.
"There's nothing malicious about Brent," he said.
"There is nothing here to me that would ever suggest he was doing it in a performance-enhancing manner.
"This would be more dealing with stress."
However, Gould did concede that he simply couldn't figure out what exactly led the 30-game NRL player to potentially use cocaine before the grand final.
"It is [mind blowing]," Gould added.
"I'm trying to work out how that might've come to play.
"That's something Brent has got to answer in the next week when he gets his inquiry from the NRL.
"Quite strange. I haven't heard of this for many decades of players playing with this in their system."
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.