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Todd Carney sacked, but what happens next?

29th June, 2014
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Todd Carney appears set to sign with North Sydney. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
Expert
29th June, 2014
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5986 Reads

Somewhere in the middle of all of his off-field transgressions, Todd Carney managed to take the pumpkin off and put his head back on long enough to win a Dally M Medal as the NRL’s Player of the Year, which tells you exactly how much wasted talent we’re talking about here.

The pumpkin went back on eventually, of course, and now Carney has been sacked by his third club, Cronulla. The clock is ganging up on Carney as well now. He’s no longer a 21-year-old with the potential for greatness, he’s a 28-year-old with a long list of indiscretions.

Carney has played three State of Origin games for NSW and one Test for Australia. He should have played many more such matches, but his off-field problems, largely related to the consumption of alcohol, have stunted his growth as a footballer.

>> Were Cronulla right to sack Todd Carney?
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>> How do you solve the Carney problem?
>> Andrew Johns, Todd Carney and the modern day footballer

None of us are angels. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and done plenty of dumb things in life myself, but what I don’t get about someone like Carney is how the public shame that comes with having your stuff-ups splashed all over the media didn’t cause him to pull his head in long ago.

Is it that he just doesn’t care? Is it an act of defiance in reaction to criticism? Does he simply refuse to become accountable? I don’t know, and I’d better cease with the amateur psychologist routine because that’s not going to help anyone.

Suffice to say that Carney needs expert help, to state the bleeding obvious. To date, he either hasn’t had enough good advice from the right people, or he has chosen to ignore it when he gets it.

Anyone who wants to see the lewd photo of Carney that led to the Sharks getting rid of him can find it on social media, which is a statement about social media in itself, but that is a whole other story.

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The other thing is that what he was doing apparently has a name, which suggests it is more of a party trick than a moment of madness for some. I hope I’m wrong.

It doesn’t matter whether we, the public, want to feel sorry for Carney, condemn him or just laugh at him.

What matters is that Carney has massive talent but has once again severely damaged his own career. Maybe butchered it for good this time. Surely he can’t be anything other than devastated by the outcome.

Carney has been a fool. Regardless of who took the picture of him at a hotel urinal and fed it to social media, he risked what has happened by putting himself in that situation.

Cronulla did what they had to do. If the club hadn’t done it, the NRL would have come in over the top and done it themselves.

What happens now with Carney will largely depend on how honest he wants to be with himself. How thorough a self-examination he wants to make and how much he wants to admit.

His football career should be secondary for the time being, if he wants to try to make a genuine attempt at correcting his behaviour off the field. He is out of business in the NRL for the rest of this season, at least, so now would be a good time to do something.

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There might be some football left for Carney, but beyond that there’s a whole life left in front of him.

Some people stuff up time and time again and then, suddenly, a light switches on over their head, for whatever reason, and they start heading in the right direction.

Hopefully, the next few moves Carney makes are all smart ones.

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