Addo-Carr maintains innocence at NRL integrity unit grilling

Canterbury winger Josh Addo-Carr has maintained during a 90-minute grilling from the NRL’s integrity unit that he didn’t knowingly take any illicit substances before testing positive to cocaine.

Addo-Carr fronted up at Rugby League Central on Thursday afternoon to explain the circumstances surrounding a positive result to cocaine at a roadside police drugs test earlier this month.

The premiership winning winger accepted a $682 fine and a three-month suspension from driving following the  incident that has left placed a cloud over his future at Canterbury. He said he accepted the police infringement notice to spare his club and family adverse publicity.

Addo-Carr was supported at the meeting by his manager, Mario Tartak, and lawyer Nick Ghabar, who regularly represents players for on-field judiciary matters.

“He maintains that he did not take anything,” Ghabar told this masthead after the meeting.

According to sources with knowledge of Thursday’s meeting who said they were unable to comment publicly until the matter is resolved, Addo-Carr told the NRL that police did not initially give him a docket with a serial number for his first test. It was mailed to the former Storm star a week later.

Canterbury Bulldogs winger Josh Addo-Carr arrives to front the NRL’s integrity unit on Thursday.Credit: Janie Barrett

Addo-Carr claims there was conjecture over whether the first test was “conclusive”, with a swab then taken afterwards. However, the decision to accept the infringement notice effectively ends the matter from a policing perspective.

The NRL is likely to sanction Addo-Carr after considering all the relevant information, and may take into account the fact that he has already missed one match.

Canterbury general manager Phil Gould said Addo-Carr’s version of events held “too many contradictions”, but would wait for him to face the NRL before deciding next steps.

“At the end of the day what we have is a positive drug test, that there were drugs in his system last Friday night,” Gould said on his Six Tackles with Gus podcast.

“I believe he’s still protesting his innocence in that. But at [some stage] he’s going to have to explain to himself and explain to people that matter exactly how that’s happened and why it’s happened.

“And then why we’ve gone through what we’ve gone through over the last week or so with that. It was certainly bad timing.”

Addo-Carr has a year to run on his $500,000 deal, but there is speculation that he may have played his last game for the club.

The Bulldogs will ensure they follow the correct process before making a decision on Addo-Carr’s future, mindful that Cronulla settled with Todd Carney after the playmaker launched an unfair dismissal claim over his sacking from the club.

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