Sailing Back?

It may have been easy to forget about Wendell Sailor given more recent drug scandals, but the code-hopping, state hopping winger is back in action. The itinerant Torres Strait Islander from Queensland, who moved from rugby league and the Brisbane Broncos to rugby union and the Queensland Reds in 2001, then on to the rival New South Wales Waratahs in 2005, was kicked out of rugby union for two years after testing positive for cocaine in 2006. Australian Rugby League honored the ban, so Sailor was out of both codes until this year. Sailor tried everything, included the strange argument that he shouldn't be banned because he had not done any cocaine near enough to a match to affect his performance, but it was all for naught. By the end of the year, poor Wendell wasn't even welcome at a beach footy tournament.

He's on the comeback trail now, though. Swapping codes once more, Sailor has signed with the St. George Illawarra Dragons and is currently playing for the second-tier Jim Beam Cup side Shellharbour Marlins. After scoring a pair of tries in his debut with the Marlins, he says he's "still got it." What's more, he passed a drug test on his return to boot. Unfortunately, it looks like not everyone was impressed. Here's an amateur video clip from his comeback match featuring some drunken hecklers (warning: lots and lots of profanity in the audio):


To get that out of your mind, here's a clip of Sailor during better days:


And finally, if you were curious what Sailor was up to during the ban, here's a brief clip of him boxing for charity: