Why is ASADA going hard on Ahmed Saad?

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You would think ASADA has a lot on its plate right now.

MORE: ASADA intervene to have Ahmed Saad ban extended | James Hird and the AFL - What's this all about?

An ongoing inquiry into AFL club Essendon and its players over dodgy supplements.

The NRL's Cronulla yet to find out their fate over similar allegations.

But instead, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority is training its guns on delisted St Kilda AFL player Ahmed Saad, trying to get his suspension increased from the 18 months already handed down by an AFL Tribunal.

Saad, who took a banned substance inadvertently in a sports drink, does need to be penalised.

Maybe for longer than 18 months. But right now, why is ASADA going after a delisted fringe player to increase his sentence by maybe six months when there are far bigger fish to fry?

The words sledgehammer and grape spring to mind. It looks like ASADA clearly going after a soft target short-term when the harder ones are proving far more elusive.

The Essendon and Cronulla inquiries have been ongoing for nearly a year. There are no signs yet they are anywhere near completion.

At least the Bombers and the AFL have an interim report. For Cronulla, we just have paper talk. ASADA, the colanders of Australian sport, are excellent at making that happen.

Surely instead of going after Saad right now, ASADA should concentrate on resolving the Essendon and Cronulla inquiries. And pushing the man central to both inquiries, sports scientist Stephen Dank, much harder.

Maybe it's because Dank is lawyered up and proving hard for ASADA - which he has called a kangaroo court and has no intention of speaking to - to crack.

Saad didn't help his own cause by his recent mea culpa on Melbourne radio station SEN. In it, he admitted to having taken the drink believed to have caused his positive sample on previous occasions. Evidence landing straight in ASADA's lap.

The public has been patient with ASADA over Essendon and Cronulla. With the organisation signalling minnow Saad is in its crosshairs first, now it's time the pressure was ramped up for a quick resolution over two far more important cases.

If Saad gets 18 months or two years or whatever ASADA goes after him for, it sets a bar - especially in terms of the amount of effort they are expending to get a result.

ASADA needs to prove it has done its job just as efficiently with Essendon's players, and with Cronulla's, and uses its authority as effectively in what appear more serious cases.

No one will have any problem with Saad getting his right whack if Essendon and Cronulla's players are chased as hard and fast.

ASADA must either clear them or charge them quickly to put an end to questions far more pressing than the Saad case.

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