The only two England internationals to have endured drug bans offer dire warnings to Bath and England prop Matt Stevens - read their thoughts in the Independent on Sunday.
""Even being your normal character changes," said Adam Dean, who was an England Under-18 flanker when he tested positive for an anabolic steroid in 2005. "I used to be the one who was loud at training and said, 'Give me the ball and I'll smash into them'. After the ban I was very much the opposite. I don't know Matt, but I can imagine him being depressed and very down. The everyday routine of getting up and doing what he used to do is out of the window. It's his job, and he may as well have been fired, but it's not just that. A ban from rugby is like being pushed out of a family."
"Martin Johnson, the England manager, and Michael Lipman, the Bath captain, have expressed a measure of support for Stevens but Dean – who joined the Royal Navy when his thoughts of a rugby contract with Sale or Newcastle evaporated – has felt the effect of a complete break. "Matt's team-mates might be saying the right things now, but I can guarantee they'll forget him," he said. "In two years' time, none of them will have called him. Life moves on, two years is a bloody long time and he won't even feel like training with them.""
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