Former Wigan prop Gabriel Hamlin was hit with a two-year suspension on Monday after testing positive for cocaine he claimed was passed on by a kiss. Hamlin, who previously played for South Sydney, was suspended by the Rugby Football League last April after being charged with a UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) violation. The 23-year-old has returned to his native Australia to be with his family. UKAD says Hamlin provided a urine sample following Wigan's second Super League match of 2019 against Leeds at the DW Stadium in February which contained benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine. Hamlin told a UKAD hearing that he did not take the banned substance and claimed it must have found a way into his system from kissing a woman he met on an online dating site. A statement on the UKAD website read: "Mr Hamlin asserts that on the evening of 7 February 2019 (the night before sample collection) he was at his home with a woman he had met through an online dating application. "Mr Hamlin indicates that he and the woman kissed during the course of the evening from around 10:30pm. "Mr Hamlin maintains he did not consume cocaine or see the woman consuming it; he suggests that she appeared 'very chatty and visited the bathroom several times' and that he discovered white powder in his bathroom the following morning (though he did not presume this to be cocaine at that time)." UKAD sought an opinion from Professor Kim Wolff, head of the Drug Control Centre at King's College London, who said the account "does not stand up to scrutiny". French tennis player Richard Gasquet, a three-time Grand Slam semi-finalist, successfully had a 12-month ban overturned in 2009 after he claimed cocaine was only in his system because he kissed a woman who had taken the substance at a nightclub. Hamlin's ban will end on February 7, 2021. smg/jc