Reacting to the case of England prop Matt Stevens, who is serving a two-year ban for cocaine use, the Rugby Football Union, Premier Rugby Limited and the Professional Rugby Players Association have created a program that will test for cocaine, cannabis, amphetamine and ecstasy during training.

UK Anti-Doping tests for performance-enhancing substances both in and out of competition but only tests for recreational drug abuse on match days.

Although Stevens tested positive on a match day and was therefore punished under UKAD's World Anti-Doping Association accredited program, PRL rugby director Phil Winstanley said the case had been "a shot across the bows for rugby union." Every player in the English Premiership will be tested at least throughout the season under the program, which will be implemented before this season ends next month. The bodies say the program is the first of its kind in world rugby.

Testing will be a mix of random and targeted, through urine samples for at least the first year of the program, with clubs allowed to request certain players to be tested.

But unlike under WADA regulations, an offending player's identity will be kept confidential unless they fail to keep to the terms of an RFU-funded treatment program.

Offending players are named publicly under WADA regulations, but RFU head of sports medicine Simon Kemp said that a similar program in Australian rules football had shown that offending rates dropped significantly without such exposure.

"The illicit drug working group debated at length how best to balance the need for a clear and strong anti-drugs message, protect the image of the game and maximize the deterrence value of a sanction, whilst providing an opportunity for players to achieve a successful rehabilitation," Kemp said. "This policy reflects these objectives and is a mature, well-researched and evidence-based response to an important issue." Seven out of 24 positive in-competition tests conducted between 2004 and 2009 were for illicit drug use.

An initial offense by a topflight professional will incur a fixed penalty of 5,000 pounds ($7,686) or 1,000 ($1,537) for a youth player.

Winstanley said that proportional fines would have ensured that richer elite players were punished as harshly as those at lower levels, but that such a system was unworkable on confidentiality grounds. The ruling bodies would have to request a copy of an offending player's contract from his club, exposing his guilt to officials other than the club's medical officer.

A second offense will incur a larger fine, public naming, suspension from rugby and further treatment.

The standard suspension would be 12 months, revised up or down depending on circumstances against or for the player.

Defending the decision not to publicly name offenders as soon as possible, Kemp cited AFL findings that more than 90 percent of positive-tested players had been drunk when they ingested the banned substance. He said this suggested a lapse in judgment rather than dependency.

The RFU has rewritten the standard playing contract to allow for out-of-competition testing, with the support of the players' union.

"The players are fully behind this," RPA chairman David Barnes said. "We've had a full role in the RPA in the development of this policy. It is our duty to uphold the image of the game and what we can do to uphold the image of the game is paramount.

"It is not something that has been placed upon us." Only the RFU program medical director, the player's club doctor and, in the case of England squad members, the England team doctor would be made aware of a first positive test.

That should mean that club coaches and even England team manager Martin Johnson would never find out, although Kemp said that the Australian Football League had found that confidentiality was most often breached by the player.

"Players responding to being tested positive can be unpredictable and they do not always exercise the soundest judgment in who they tell," Kemp said.