The Bulldogs' NRL season might be over, but the fallout from the Josh Addo-Carr drug scandal continues to roll along.
After standing himself down from their finals' loss against the Sea Eagles, the winger's tenure with the team looks all but over, following a positive road-side drug test for cocaine.
As more details come to light, Addo-Carr continues to maintain his innocence, but club CEO Phil Gould says he still has plenty to answer for.
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Gould explains Addo-Carr situation
The Bulldogs made headlines for all the wrong reasons heading into footy finals, after star winger Addo-Carr missed their clash with Manly due to a positive drug test scandal.
According to Gould, the club was incredibly disappointed by both the failed test and the way in which Addo-Carr handled it, and also cast doubt on the innocence of the former Orign representative.
"I’ve said all along that Josh Addo-Carr came to us with a certain version of events, and over time, that changed slightly from day-to-day depending on what had been revealed," Gould said on his podcast Six Tackles with Gus.
"At the end of the day, what we have is a positive drugs test, there were drugs in his system last Friday night, I believe he’s still protesting his innocence in that.
"But at somehow, somewhere, 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.
"It was certainly bad timing and I’m so proud of the club with how they dealt with it, the way the players and coaches put it out of their minds and got ready for the weekend and performed the way they did.
"There is a process here. Josh Addo-Carr I believe on Thursday has a meeting with the NRL Integrity Unit. The NRL Integrity Unit doesn’t get involved on issues like this until it has gone through the courts. So what would normally happen is they would wait for the result of the second drug test - now it’s come back positive.
"Now that he’s taken the fine and accepted the penalty from the courts and he’s not going to court to contest it, even though privately he’s protesting his innocence and saying he didn’t take the drug, he’s going to have to come up with some solution about how it got into his system because it’s definitely in his system, end of story, that’s what’s happened.
"Around the world we’ve seen some bizarre explanations of how this might have happened or didn’t happen.
"Josh has got to find out how it happened.
"We’re still investigating, we’re still searching to find out what really happened. But at some point, there will be a discussion with his manager and with Josh going forward, it’s as simple as that and that’s what we have to do."
