National Registered Drug Testing Pool

The England team makes up the core of the national testing pool

Photo: Getty Images

A select number of players in England have been identified for inclusion in the UK Anti-Doping National Registered Testing Pool (NRTP) and are required to provide individual whereabouts information so they can be located for individual out of competition testing.

Players have to provide the information in advance on a quarterly basis via an online system (ADAMS) including personal, residence, training and competition information as well as a nominated location and a nominated one-hour slot, between 6:00am and 11:00pm, for every day of the forthcoming quarter.

The penalty for non-compliance is severe. Players who fail to provide accurate information or who are unavailable for testing during their one-hour slot will receive a filing failure or missed test respectively. Any player who receives three filing failures or missed tests (or a combination of both) in 18 months may be found guilty of an anti-doping rule violation and receive a ban of between one and two years.

The RFU is one of only three IRB Member Unions to have players in a National Registered Testing Pool (NRTP), ensuring we have arguably the most strict out-of-competition drug-testing programme in world rugby.

NRTP Guidance Notes & FAQs

For further information on how the NRTP works, especially in conjunction with the iRB Testing Pools please see the guidance notes and FAQs. (Doc 52Kb)