When police entered the Bells Hotel in Woolloomooloo just before 8pm last Friday, Damian Keogh did what most people do when they're allegedly carrying a bag of cocaine and see your garden-variety sniffer dog.
He froze. Nervously looked around the pub. Kept chatting like nothing was wrong. Shuffled hands in and out of pockets. Edgily moved towards the bathroom …
Keogh was intercepted by police before he got there and arrested with the whole ugly scene caught on CCTV, which was then sold this week to Channel Nine.
Even worse for the Cronulla chairman, who immediately stood himself down amid the shame of the charges, is that an ABC film crew was shadowing police that night for an upcoming documentary with the working title "Keeping Australia Safe".
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That sums up rugby league's dumb luck right there.
Police and government sources have told NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg that well-known bars and nightclubs — such as the Ivy and Coogee Pavilion — are being targeted by police looking for drug use, meaning high-profile people, including footballers, are at risk of being caught.
The NSW police say there was no such drug sweep of the city last week. They have operations happening all over the city, on any given night.
But the same drug operation that netted Keogh also caught another nine members of the public for drug offences at nearby hotels and nightclubs in the space of a couple of hours.
This small stat is relevant.
Ever since Keogh, Roosters star Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Kiwis captain Jesse Bromwich, Kiwis forward Kevin Proctor, and Sharks under-20s player Jesse Savage were busted in a 72-hour period either using or in possession of cocaine, the cliched assumption is rugby league has a rampant drug problem.
I think the real problem is rugby league has trouble understanding that quite a few people in the game – senior player, junior player, Kiwi captain, club chairman – use drugs. It's not the norm but it's far from the exception.
Since the weekend, I've been told about the international who's been kicked out of three eastern suburbs establishments for using cocaine, much to the bemusement of teammates who believe they would've earned harsher sanction if it had been them.
I've been told, repeatedly, about another international who is "five minutes to midnight" away from an offence that will surely end his career.
Of course, someone is to blame and everyone reckons they have the answer. When they find it, can they let the rehab clinics know?
It's either a weak NRL and its flimsy two-strike illicit drugs policy. Or, according to the Storm and the Titans, the New Zealand Rugby League is responsible because Bromwich and Proctor – both 28-year-old men and seasoned first-grade footballers – weren't given a curfew and supervised properly.
At what point is reckless, illegal behaviour that trashes the reputation of the game the fault of the player who is given more education, welfare and support than the man and woman on the street?
And at what point did the NRL become a law enforcement agency? Bromwich and Proctor were caught on CCTV footage by Canberra police snorting cocaine off the phone belonging to a local man at 5am following the Kiwis' loss to Australia the previous night.
A Canberra man was charged by police but Bromwich and Proctor escaped reprimand. That's been been left to the NRL.
Some have screamed that the NRL should've tested both immediately. Under the collective bargaining agreement, they can only test at supervised times. And the NRL has no jurisdiction over ASADA, which can test only in competition.
Doubtless, the headlines of the past week have deeply embarrassed the game. The Sharks and Roosters on Wednesday lost a reported $1million in sponsorship from the Infinity Group, although Sharks sources claim their deal was worth $175,000, not $700,000 as reported.
This drugs scandal – like the last dozen or so – has deeply embarrassed the game but it's also thrown out its moral compass.
Sharks captain Paul Gallen wants players named and shamed on the first strike as a greater deterrent. Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga wants three months. So does Peter Sterling. Some want a year. Some want life.
The game is prepared to give players found guilty of domestic violence; of sexual assault; of sending around lurid sex tapes on social media that embarrass the women involved; of using performance-enhancing substances; a second chance.
But when a silly footballer who has half a bag of Devil's Dandruff in his top pocket, who isn't hurting a single soul except his own body and the game's reputation and his own livelihood, is caught out, he's demonised like he's Pablo Escobar.
The easiest target has been the NRL's two-strike policy. Ignore the hysteria: it's working.
On the first strike, a player's coach, chief executive and club doctor is informed of the positive test. A second strike brings about a 12-match suspension and the player is named publicly.
Since the NRL took over illicit drug testing from the clubs in 2014, with more than 2500 random tests held each season, only three players have recorded a second strike: Cronulla fullback Ben Barba, Souths centre Kirisome Auva'a and under-20s player Jayden Walker.
That doesn't seem like a game going soft. That sounds like a mature approach that gives the young player who has made a grave error of judgment a resounding wake-up call. You can hear the coach saying it now: "Do you want to be Ben Barba? Do you want to throw it all away?"
The deterrents go beyond that.
Kenny-Dowall has blown a $1.2 million contract at the Knights. Bromwich and Proctor won't play at the World Cup, have been suspended, heavily fined and ordered to do community service by their clubs.
And Keogh's nervous doorstop media conference behind dark sunglasses this week was enough to make any person, from any walk of life, wonder if they should be carrying a bag of Fizz Whiz in their top pocket after a long lunch on Friday.
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