Hudson Young opens up about NRL drugs ban and night in jail

From a drug ban to a jail cell to the NRL, Hudson Young, 20 has never been able to confront his dark past. Until now. In an exclusive interview with James Phelps, Young reveals how Ricky Stuart and the Raiders rescued his NRL dream. WATCH THE VIDEO

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Sunscreen on, towel in his Newcastle Knights backpack, Hudson Young was almost out the door when the phone rang.

“It’s for you love,’’ said his nan. “Sounds important.’’

The surf would have to wait.

The 16-year-old dropped his bag to the floor and put his train timetable back in his pocket.

All anticipation and wonder, he strutted towards the call.

Another representative team?

LISTEN TO HUDSON YOUNG TELL HIS STORY IN THE VIDEO ABOVE

One mistake almost cost Hudson Young his NRL dream.

Nan had handed him this same phone 12 months before when Newcastle called to tell him he had been picked to play Harold Matthews for his beloved Knights.

“It’s for you love,’’ Nan said six months later.

Again, it was the Knights, this time the club calling to tell him he would play SG Ball as a 16-year-old.

All those 5am training sessions with Pop were finally paying off. Those that laughed at him for dragging a tractor tyre in the dark, Pop screaming ‘faster’ and ‘harder’, would soon be silent.

Canberra Raiders rookie Hudson Young speaks for the first time about his NRL drugs ban and his 18-month stint in juvenile detention. Picture Kleber Osorio

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Now Nan was handing him the phone, train trip to the beach on hold.

“Thanks Nan,’’ he said as he grabbed the receiver. Maybe an NRL contract?

And that’s when his rugby league dream was shattered.

“I answered the phone and the lady on the other end told me she was from ASADA,’’ Young told The Sunday Telegraph.

“She then told me that I had tested positive for a banned substance.’’

Young replied with silence.

“I was in shock,’’ Young said. “I didn’t know what to think or say.’’

Young eventually mustered the courage to say, “Really?’’.

“That’s all I could get out,’’ Young said.

“Yes,’’ said ASADA’s Karen Smith.

“You have tested positive to a prohibited substance and you have been banned.’’

“So what does that mean?’’ Young asked.

“Can I still play this weekend?’’

The response was brutal.

“She told me that I had been banned for two years.

“That I had tested positive to a substance that I still can’t pronounce. That I wouldn’t play for two years unless I appealed the decision and got the sentence reduced,” he said.

“I was absolutely shattered. Everything I had dreamt of and worked so hard for had been taken away.’’

The Knights backpack stayed on the floor. There would be no beach today. And no rugby league for 18 months.

But there would be a jail cell.

Hudson Young as a teenager.

Young playing in the Newcastle Knights junior league.

“Here,’’ said Young’s uncle. “Give this a go.’’

Young’s uncle took the store-bought supplement from the shelf.

“It might help,’’ his uncle continued.

Struggling to make it back on the field for the Knights in his first year of SG Ball after sustaining an ankle injury, Young looked at the tub.

“I better check it first,’’ Young said.

So the injured star in the making went to the web.

“I searched for the product on the website,’’ Young said.

“It come up no match found.’’

So he started taking the product. Thought he was “sweet’’. But he had a moment of doubt when he was confronted by a drug tester and asked to provide a urine sample.

“I was a bit worried when I did the test,’’ Young said.

“I kind of thought if there is anything in that (supplement) then I am going to get into trouble here. I didn’t really know what it was I had taken.

“The thing that made me take it was that it didn’t come up on the website. That made me feel OK about taking it. My uncle had no idea that there was anything banned in it. He just had it in his house and told me to give it a go.’’

The call from came about a month later. Young was banned for a minimum of two years when he tested positive to an undisclosed illicit substance in 2015.

“I struggled after the decision,’’ Young said.

“And I started acting like a dickhead and got myself into trouble.’’

Young tackled during the round nine NRL match between the Sydney Roosters and the Canberra Raiders at Suncorp Stadium on May 12. Picture: Albert Perez

First came the misdemeanours.

“I started getting in trouble at school,’’ Young said. “I was always getting kicked out of class for being on my phone because I was glued to it waiting for news.

“I was under a lot of stress and I started getting into trouble away from school as well. I was being a dickhead, mucking around with my mates and partying.’’

Next came the jail cell.

“We were drinking at a party,’’ Young said. “We left and ended up going to our old school. We broke a few windows and did a few stupid things. We broke bubblers. The police knew it was us because we had been caught on camera.’’

Young, wearing his school uniform, walked into his local police station and confessed to the crime.

“I was arrested, charged and put in cell. It was bloody embarrassing.’’

Hudson sat in the cell, all steel, cold and completely confronting.

“I remembered thinking ‘what the f--- am I doing’. It just hit me. I thought this isn’t who I want to be or what I want to be doing. I didn’t want to go down that path. My name had been tarnished enough and it was time to show people who I was.’’

Young also decided to resurrect his rugby league dream.

Cue the 4am training sessions.

Floggings in the dark for two hours every day before school, helping turn him into a Canberra Raider.

“But first I had to confront what I had done,’’ he said.

“The ban was never made public so a lot of people didn’t know what had happened. People were always asking me why I wasn’t playing football and I would tell them I was injured.

“It was killing me inside. I made a decision to tell the truth and once I started telling people that I was banned, it was easier for me to move forward.’’

The hard work had just begun.

Young said his decision to speak publicly about his ban has helped him return to the NRL. Picture Kleber Osorio

“I started by joining a gym. I’d lost a lot of weight and had to start building myself up. My mate (Liam Pearce) started training with me. He kept telling me that I could still make it (the NRL). He would tell me every day.’’

Strength slowly coming back, Young contacted Josh Day, his former strength and conditioning trainer at the Knights, and asked for help.

“He messaged me back and told me to meet him at 4am,’’ Young said.

“My pop woke me up and I met him up the oval. I spewed after that session. But I went back. We trained every day before school at 4am after that. Five days a week for 10 months.’’

Young also trained after school before going to work his night job at McDonald’s.

The hard work paid off with a meeting with Raiders recruitment manager Peter Mulholland and coach Ricky Stuart in Sydney near the end of his ban.

“They told me they were willing to give me a chance. Ricky offered me a one-year deal on a $300 a match deal.’’

Young moved to Canberra when he was 18. He had $700 in the bank and a one-strike-and-you’re-out chance to make the NRL.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Now 20, Young is the emerging enforcer who last week announced himself in the NRL by going toe-to-toe with Sam Burgess.

Last night he took on Jason Taumalolo’s Cowboys in his eighth match.

“Some people still call me a drug cheat,’’ Young said.

“But I don’t see myself as a drug cheat. I just made a mistake trying to get back from an injury. I was only 16 and I paid a heavy price. I have my second chance and I am determined to make the most of it.’’

Originally published as Hudson Young opens up about NRL drugs ban and night in jail