Bronson Xerri will need to pass a series of drug tests during the next 12 months before the NRL will consider registering his Bulldogs contract, as the banned star steps up his return to rugby league.
Xerri, who earlier this month signed a two-year deal to join the Bulldogs at the end of his ban for taking a performance-enhancing substance, has to return negative samples for his NRL comeback to be cleared for the 2024 season.
The regime is part of Xerri’s path to resuming life as an NRL player and shows the process the 22-year-old will be subjected to before pulling on the blue and white.
The Bulldogs will monitor the results of Xerri’s testing throughout 2023.
The club announced it had struck a deal with the former Sharks speedster to rekindle his NRL career, but it will be subject to several terms and conditions being met, including regular testing, which will need to prove Xerri is free of any banned substances.
While Xerri has openly discussed his ambition to return to the NRL on his social media accounts, the NRL won’t rubber stamp his return until several conditions are met in the final months of his four-year ban.
Bronson Xerri will continue to be drug tested before the NRL registers his Bulldogs contract.Credit:NRL Photos
The NRL is unlikely to give Xerri the green light to return to full-time training with his new teammates until November 24 next year, the expiry of his WADA-imposed ban.
It means he will potentially miss the first few weeks of pre-season training with Cameron Ciraldo’s squad if the Bulldogs don’t make the finals next year and return in early November.
It is unlikely NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo and integrity unit boss Jason King will discuss the Xerri matter until much closer to his return date, but it hasn’t stopped Xerri, hailed as one of the brightest young talents in the game after a scintillating 2019 season as a teenager, from laying the building blocks for his comeback.
Sporting a far more muscular physique, Xerri has continued to work with renowned sprint guru Roger Fabri and has played in the local OzTag competition in the Sutherland Shire recently. The recreational sport isn’t subject to drug testing bans.
Xerri scored 13 tries in just 22 games during his maiden NRL season and wasted little time establishing himself as one of the hottest prospects in the game before his career came crashing down in May 2020, days before the resumption of the competition after a COVID-enforced shut down.
In an interview with the Herald last year before the NRL anti-doping tribunal had handed down its findings, Xerri said: “I just want to say that this was my mistake, no one else’s. Not my family. I love my family and the reason I want to play again is to make them proud. I know I have let my family down and I have lost friends over all this. But at least I know who my friends are.
“I have learnt a lot from this and I hope that one day people will forgive me because I am sorry. I made a bad decision when I was in a bad place.”
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
