Addo-Carr expected to be stood down from Bulldogs' final pending ...
Canterbury winger Josh Addo-Carr is expected to be stood down from the Bulldogs’ first finals game in eight years pending a meeting with club powerbrokers on Tuesday.
Addo-Carr was a notable absentee from the Bulldogs 2024 Awards Night on Monday, advised not to attend the event after allegedly returning a positive result to a roadside drug test on Friday night.
Bulldogs officials want to leave Addo-Carr out of the team list for Sunday’s game against Manly but will first sit down with coach Cameron Ciraldo on Tuesday morning to get his views on the situation. A case could be made for him to play.
Sources with knowledge of the situation talking under the condition of anonymity due to confidentiality told this masthead that Ciraldo wants his best team available for the do-or-die clash with Manly but also understands the need for the club to set standards.
The Bulldogs are also trying to determine whether Addo-Carr misled officials. The club is also reluctant for Addo-Carr to go into the club’s first finals game since 2016 with the distraction hanging over his head – especially when they don’t know when the police will release the results of his second drug test.
Police on Monday confirmed a 29-year-old male registered a positive reading to cocaine after he was stopped for a roadside test late on Friday night. A second test was sent off for further examination.
Addo-Carr is expected to be stood down by the Bulldogs.Credit: Getty
“About 10.45pm on Friday, officers attached to Auburn Police Area Command were patrolling Baywater Drive, Wentworth Point, when they stopped a Toyota hatchback for random testing,” the police statement said.
“The driver – a 29-year-old man – was subject to roadside testing which allegedly returned a positive indication for cocaine. The sample has been sent for analysis.”
Addo-Carr, unavailable to play due to injury, was staying with his Bulldogs teammates at a Sydney Olympic Park hotel on Friday night and had left to pick up a phone charger, according to club sources.
Earlier, he watched the Roosters-Rabbitohs game at Accor Stadium with members of the coaching staff and teammates Matt Burton and Bronson Xerri. Club staff weren’t aware he’d left the hotel until the following morning.
Addo-Carr’s future at the Bulldogs is now under a cloud, with the club to investigate whether he also misled officials with his version of events. His contract still has another year to run, but he runs the risk of having it torn up if he has both lied to the club and tested positive to an illegal substance.
Bulldogs general manager Phil Gould provided an insight into what had transpired on 100% Footy on Monday night, admitting Addo-Carr had told the club about the roadside test but that his version of events didn’t tally with that of the police.
“The way it was reported to us [by Addo-Carr] Saturday morning felt that he was rather very dismissive of it,” Gould said. “That there was no drama, that he was, he hadn’t tested positive to anything and that they allowed him to drive home and sent him on his way … I’d kind of forgotten about it until he rang me this morning and said that there was some phone calls he got from players at other clubs, and his wife had got some phone calls that this was bubbling around.
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“And then people in the media started to make some [calls] and I spoke to our chairman. I said, ‘I spoke to Josh about this over the weekend twice and his description of events is that we’ve got nothing to worry about and he’s got nothing to worry about’.
“But as it turns out, this afternoon, there are now conflicting reports from the police and the way they’ve described the events, which has led me now to sit down with Josh Addo-Carr and his manager face to face at 5 o’clock this afternoon to go through exactly how things unfolded and what’s happened.”
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