Kane Cornes has called for the AFL to mount an investigation into recent revelations from ex-Hawthorn player Jonathan Hay.
In a Herald Sun feature, Hay admitted to being a regular user of drugs during his playing days, with one paragraph in the article in particular alarming Cornes.
“The strongest and most concerning paragraph of this article from the Herald Sun for me was: ‘Hawthorn had a cabinet in the doctor’s room and it was full of Valium and sleeping tablets and I could walk in there and it was never locked. I don’t blame Hawthorn, but I would go in, help myself to whatever I wanted. My drug use was daily’,” Cornes told SEN SA Breakfast.
On the back of Hay’s admission, the former Port Adelaide All-Australian believes the AFL must investigate what really happened and get to the bottom of it.
“Now, that deserves an AFL investigation. I know it was 15 years ago, but how can a club who Hay says was aware of his issues and aware of his drug use have a room in the club where they just allow players to go and raid any sort of drug that they want?” Cornes said.
“We’re talking 2004 and 2005 and I’m sure post the Essendon supplement saga things have tightened up, but that is alarming and if I was Gillon McLachlan and people inside the AFL reading that, I would have nearly fallen off my chair.
“I’m not sure who the doctor and the medical team were at Hawthorn at the time, but I’d have them on the phone this morning just trying to confirm whether that version of events from Hay is true because that is astounding.”
Hay admitted to receiving a couple of drug strikes under the AFL’s official illicit substance policy, but his name was never made public.
Cornes believes the AFL must overhaul this system.
"The AFL's illicit drugs policy just does not work," he told the Sunday Footy Show.
"The players are learning ways to get around the system. Brock McLean speaks about it in his article that he was abusing drugs all weekend and he was turning up on Monday and still passing illicit drug tests.
"While the AFL has since tightened the restrictions and parameters around the illicit drugs policy, it is not enough.
"There is no doubt that there are current day players still abusing this policy that does protect the anonymity of players.
"I get the feeling in five to 10 years time, there's going to be a current day player that's going to be the next Brock McLean or the next Jonathan Hay that's going to come out and tell their story of how drugs ruined their life and we would have learnt absolutely nothing.
"My message to the AFL and the AFL Players' Association and by extension, the players (is) they must do more to stamp out this illicit drug use that is clearly rampant still in the game."
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