South African newspapers waded into the banned drug furore involving the Australia and Queensland Reds winger Ben Tune.

Four days before a Tri-nations match between Australia and South Africa in Brisbane, officials announced that the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) had known about a positive test for a banned diuretic Tune inadvertently took last year.

The ARU conceded a mistake had been made in not making details known at the time, saying the decision was made to spare Tune from becoming an unnecessary victim of what it described as a medical oversight.

The Cape Argus led its front page with the story which carried a call by Springbok coach Rudolf Straueli for the entire Australian squad to be tested before Saturday's match.

The back page lead was a comment piece by its tour correspondent reading: "There's something rotten at the core of Australian sports administration.

"That's the only conclusion to be drawn today from the breathtaking revelations that the ARU concealed for more than a year the fact that one of their players failed a drugs test."

The paper likened the controversy to the Australian Cricket Board's handling of the Mark Waugh and Shane Warne case of the 1990s when the duo were fined for accepting money from an Indian bookmaker, though the incident was kept secret for several years.

Of the current row, the Argus wrote: "The ARU were dishonest, cavalier and downright sneaky in the manner in which they completely ignored the spirit of the International Rugby Board's doping policy."

The paper wondered whether "Tunegate" was the only instance of an ARU intervention in a positive drugs test.

The Argus' sister paper, The Star in Johannesburg, also asked: "Drug cover up - is there more to come?"