Sharks recruit Josh Dugan booted from Cronulla RSL for unruly behaviour
SHARKS recruit Josh Dugan was booted from Cronulla RSL last week for unruly behaviour in a bad look for the New South Wales Origin star.
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ON the score of being a rugby league scandal, it probably rates on the lower scale.
But the fact it’s Josh Dugan AGAIN should be causing concern for his new club Cronulla. The perennial troublemaker was thrown out of Cronulla RSL last week for swearing in front of patrons and behaving like a mug.
We got an email from a member and checked it out with the RSL’s president, Ian Bourke.
“He was swearing and carrying on in the poker machine area,” Bourke said. “When one of our female employees, who had no idea who he was, told him to stop, he said ‘who do you think you are?’
“He was carrying on like a real goose.”
WHAT’S THE BUZZ: Saint, sinner, shoosh
RSL staff reported the incident to the Sharks the following day and showed them CCTV footage. Their security guards wear mini-body cameras with sound and picked up the drama as Dugan began objecting at being asked to leave.
There is footage of him waving his arms around and arguing with staff in the foyer.
Bourke said he had received complaints.
“Look, he’s not the first person to swear at the club and it’s not a sackable offence,” he said.
“He’d had a couple to drink. We won’t cite him or bar him but he shouldn’t be swearing and carrying on in front of our members. They complained so we had to get him out.”
Andrew Fifita was with Dugan and was asked to help escort him from the club.
Fifita was praised by RSL staff for helping out. The incident wasn’t considered serious enough by the Sharks to report to the NRL.
FERGUSON SPLITS WITH PARTNER
DUGAN’S partner in “crime” in State of Origin last year, Roosters star Blake Ferguson, is dealing with his own personal issues.
He recently separated from his partner and mother of his two children and is living at Anthony Mundine’s mother’s house in Hurstville.
Last October, police were called to Ferguson’s home after a night on the booze with Paul Carter, the player sacked by the Roosters last year for supplying cocaine to teammate Shaun Kenny-Dowall.
POLITIS BOYCOTTS GRANT FAREWELL
SYDNEY Roosters supremo Nick Politis was one of many club officials who boycotted the John Grant farewell farce.
The car dealer tycoon had a much better offer that day — dinner with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
And, by the way, the Grant farewell cost the game $50,000, not $30,000 as originally thought. What a bloody disgrace.
THE FUTURE OF AUSSIE SPINNERS?
THE next generation has started to emerge on the Sydney grade cricket scene.
Mac Jenkins — at just 16 years and 164 days old — debuted in first grade for Randwick Petersham against Sydney at Coogee Oval yesterday.
A left-arm orthodox spinner, Jenkins is younger than Steve Smith and Michael Clarke and four days older than Allan Border when they made their first-grade debuts in Sydney grade cricket.
Randwick Petersham president and former Aussie Test fast bowler Mike Whitney presented his cap before play.
Jenkins will play for the Australian under-16 team against Pakistan’s under 16s in Melbourne in April, alongside another youngster to crack first grade this year, Sydney’s Hugh Sherriff.
PEACHEY BOUND FOR GOLD COAST
PENRITH Panthers star Tyrone Peachey is a done deal at the Gold Coast Titans. He has signed for three years from 2019 onwards. It will be announced later this week. He will be linking back up with former Panthers Bryce Cartwright, Leilani Latu and Mitch Rein, who have also gone north to the glitter strip to start afresh.
KNIGHT CASHED UP
IT’S probably not such a good look for him — or the game — for troubled Canberra forward Liam Knight to be showing off his $6000 worth of poker machine winnings on social media late at night.
MATTY WANTS 97 REUNION
MATTY Johns is trying to set up a reunion between two of rugby league’s toughest and most bitter rivals when the Newcastle Knights host the Manly Sea Eagles in round one. Johns is driving from Sydney for the game with Mark “Spud” Carroll and wants to hook him up with Paul “The Chief” Harragon. The two enforcers fought out some of the most brutal one-on-one battles in the history of the game during the ‘90s.
NEW BOARD, NEW TIMES FOR BULLDOGS
THE new chair of Canterbury Bulldogs Lynne Anderson won’t have the same power as previous boss Ray Dib at Belmore.
Anderson has not been a member of Canterbury Leagues Club for three years which prevents her from being a director on the organisation that funds the football club.
Not that she is complaining. “I’ll be focusing on the football and my full-time commitment as CEO of the Australian Paralympic committee,” she said.
Bulldogs legend George Peponis is hanging on as chairman of the leagues club but there is a push to have him replaced by incoming board member John Ballesty.
Only Canterbury would be stupid enough to dump a man who is about to join the ARL independent Commission and become one of the most influential figures in the game.