Victor Radley’s crime was making a fool of Nick Politis

2 weeks ago 4

Opinion

September 19, 2025 — 3.30pm

Text message from Victor Radley to Nick Politis:

Happy Days. Sick c--- you sorted us good man. Yep let me know if you need anything I’ll sort it for ya. Hektic cheers lad.

There is no suggestion that Radley sent this or any other text messages, that he owns a phone, that he has ever consumed cocaine or any other illegal drug, or that he went to the Sunshine Coast in June for a golf weekend and put $900 up his nose without sharing it with his teammates.

Yet for all of these absences of suggestion, Radley, who had the sack waved over him and then withdrawn, put out a public statement apologising “to the club, my teammates, our sponsors, members and fans for the negative spotlight I have brought on the Roosters”. He accepted his 10-match ban and financial penalty amounting to $150,000 (or 333 eight-balls of cocaine at the going Queensland rate) and “will work hard to earn back the trust and respect of everyone who serves this great club”.

In the entire Brandon Smith-Radley-no-suggestion-of-a-pile-of-coke-for-Roosters-players-on-a-bye-weekend dramedy, this statement was the most mysterious. It undid many loose ends that had previously been tied.

If Radley hadn’t ordered any drugs from a Queensland dealer (known via text message as “people in sunny coast”), in what way had he brought the club into disrepute? If he admits having to earn back his teammates’ “trust and respect”, is that because he didn’t share the goodies with fellow golfers James Tedesco, Hugo Savala, Zach Dockar-Clay, Sandon Smith, Egan Butcher and Chad Townsend, or because he did? If he accepts the ban, isn’t he the one who’s now suggesting he did the wrong thing?

But the “wrong thing”, when you boil away all the excess, is what this was all about. One hundred per cent of NRL players and 200 per cent of Roosters fans know that cocaine use is prevalent. Among eastern suburbs NRL followers, the rate might be even higher. As Robin Williams put it, cocaine is God’s way of telling them they’re making too damn much money.

So the outrage at Radley’s alleged cocaine deal was, let’s say, muted. In fact, there was more outrage at Politis’s reported advice, before he boarded a flight in North America, that Radley be “encouraged to explore his options at other clubs”.

Was cocaine on a golf weekend really hurting anyone, other than Radley’s golf game? If doing coke is a sackable offence, how would NRL clubs, not to mention the other two in the pipeline, ever fill their rosters? And how was Radley, the Mayor of Bondi, to “explore his options”? There was a widespread fear that he would be left waiting for four hours while the options, in the form of a “Hilux jacked Gray (sic)“, was on its way.

Then there were conspiracy theories that the Roosters’ real motive was to move Radley on because he is one concussion away from retirement. Because he is not the player he was. Because they might like to free up some space in the salary cap (this last theory was quickly deemed irrelevant).

In the end, NRL logic prevailed. Cocaine is everywhere in professional sport, most of all on bye weekends. Rugby league has already accepted this with a convention that sanctions for recreational drug use follow a “three strikes” policy. The numerous rugby league players who have caught themselves out by posting footage of “white powder” have been hit with the wettest of lettuce leaves.

The problem remains, then, among those who are still in the dark. The problem became Politis.

When Radley was encouraged to “explore his options”, it was pretty clear to everyone except the Roosters’ sugar daddy that the player’s crime was not doing cocaine but making a fool of Politis and coach Trent Robinson. Politis, on his own and, fatefully, Robinson’s behalf, had firmly stated that his club had a “zero tolerance” approach to cocaine use. Politis had said this after a Latrell Mitchell “white powder” micro-scandal, letting the temptation to have a jab at Mitchell and South Sydney cloud his judgement. Robinson, reportedly, did not like being brought into it. He has premierships to win (or not), and didn’t want to lose valuable players when, inevitably, they got caught on the toot.

But Politis, from an earlier generation, thought he was on safe ground and the Roosters lived on a higher plane than every other club. Until Radley’s text messages.

Among the many precedents for clubs dealing with coke use, just one stood out. This was when Josh Addo-Carr, while at Canterbury, tested positive for cocaine while driving. Addo-Carr was sacked – not so much for allegedly skiving off from his clubmates for a night of enhanced games as for making a fool of Phil Gould, who had backed Addo-Carr’s innocence. There is a no-strike policy for embarrassing powerful men.

So the Roosters were left between a rock ($900 worth) and a hard place. It was reality on one side versus Politis’s dignity and status on the other. It doesn’t appear that many in the club wanted him sacked. Notably coy, or eloquent in their silence, were Tedesco and the other golfers. Few fans of the Roosters or other clubs thought a player should be sacked for this. There but for the grace of God go all of us.

In the end, Politis swallowed his pride and Robinson had to disavow any connection with a “zero tolerance” policy. It also helped Radley that he’d have had good odds on an unfair dismissal action, certainly better odds than “Hilux jacked Gray” guy was able to get on Smith being first try scorer against Manly at Brookvale. (Side note: the forgotten hero in all this is Jazz Tevaga, whose last-ditch tackle on Smith saved a four-pointer and a potential match-fixing scandal.)

Seeing Politis accept that there’s no fool like an old fool, while giving a nice finals-season dose of schadenfreude to the rest of the NRL, was a victory for realism. Some NRL players aren’t messiahs, they’re just naughty boys who make too much damn money. Radley will be making less next year, which might help him. The problem is clubs and individuals who adopt the pomp and circumstance of Donald Trump at Windsor Castle. By accepting that they’re no different from any other club, by swallowing their pride, the Roosters finally did the right thing. Radley owes Politis a text. Hektic cheers lad.

It had to be this way. It’s the right ending. It will be a lesson to all NRL players, if not about clean living then about being more careful about texting. Radley and his club will put this behind them. Things aren’t looking quite as sunny for Hilux jacked Gray guy.