If Josh Dugan is sacked by Canberra this week and joins another NRL club, one suspects that events will have played out exactly as he wanted them to. He is reportedly unhappy with coach David Furner and didn't show up to recovery on Monday morning after the loss to Penrith.
Certainly, posting pictures of himself drinking on a suburban roof was provocative – but maybe it was intentionally so. On one hand, the club loses faith with other players by taking no action. On the other, a key player is free to go and ply his trade elsewhere.
It could easily be construed as a tasteless attempt to back his club into a cold, dark corner.
There is an organisational disconnect right now when one NRL club sacks a player for behavioural issues and another picks him up almost immediately. Players can engineer situations that allow them to get out of binding contracts and even earn more money – or escape a coach they don't like – and have a helluva lot of fun doing it.
If Sonny Bill Williams had gone on repeated benders in 2008 instead of shuffling quietly off to the airport, perhaps Toulon and/or Williams and/or Anthony Mundine would not have to have had to pay that massive transfer fee for him!
