St George Illawarra prop Paul Vaughan is facing the axe at an emergency board meeting on Tuesday in which the NRL club will address an illegal house party organised and attended by 13 players.
Jack de Belin and other players are also facing increased sanction on top of the one-game suspensions and the $305,000 worth of fines handed out to the group by the NRL on Monday.
Adding to the club’s frustration around Vaughan is Saturday’s party was his second breach of the NRL’s biosecurity rules after he attended a cafe while in the NRL bubble last season.
Vaughan is contracted to the Dragons until the end of next season, and Tuesday’s board meeting will determine whether they have grounds to terminate his deal.
The ex-NSW prop copped the heaviest of sanctions by the NRL with an eight-week suspension and a $50,000 fine for hosting the party in Shellharbour on Saturday, breaking not only the NRL bubble but NSW health orders.
All 13 players as well as Vaughan’s partner were fined $1000 by NSW Police, and it has since emerged that de Belin misled authorities, the club and the NRL’s integrity unit to cover up he had been in attendance.
De Belin told the club he had been walking his dog in the general area of the party and just dropped something off at the house, but it was later alleged he had been hiding from police under a bed.
Dragons CEO Ryan Webb labelled the actions of the players as arrogant and flagged further club sanctions could be imposed on Tuesday.
“Nothing has been talked about to that level, but honestly I don’t know where it’s going to end up,” he told SEN Radio on Tuesday morning when asked if contracts would be torn up.
“It’s a pretty massive thing for the club, it’s not something we can solve with some light undertakings.
“There’s going to be some serious repercussions.”
NRL CEO Andrew Abdo also slammed the players for putting the competition at risk with a premeditated party while the state deals with an uncertain COVID-19 situation.
“When I think about all that’s at stake and I think about how many people are working incredibly hard to keep our competition going and keep the community safe, yeah, I was gutted,” Abdo told Channel Nine.
“But we’ve worked incredibly hard in two days to get to the bottom of what happened. Our integrity team did a terrific job.
“We’ve now dealt with it. The players understand the consequences and I think it sends a message to all the other players too, that we won’t tolerate any breaches of those protocols. They are critical to keep the season going.”
The Dragons are furious about being lied to by some of the players and Webb said they need to win the trust back of their fans.
“I don’t know where the discussion will go, there’s a lot to sift through,” he told SEN.
“We’ve got to make sure the board is aware of all the intricacies of how this played out and the reaction to everything by each of the players. “Then we’ll make some decisions of what we want to do as a club.
“There’s a lot of people right now that have lost a lot of trust in our club and we’ve got to try and earn that back.”