Sleeve tattoos. Raiders junior. Burgeoning superstar. Trouble behind the wheel.
On the surface, the comparisons are too obvious to ignore. You can bet that even the people who don't dare say it are definitely thinking it.
Is Josh Dugan headed down the same troubled road as Todd Carney?
Let's just slow down for a minute.
Yes, if there's another thing Dugan and Carney share in common it's that neither has yet shown a true capacity to learn from previous mistakes.
Throw them on a footy field and they're naturals, instinctive, outstanding. Throw them behind the wheel of a car and they're trouble.
But it's the nature and number of their mistakes that sets them apart.
If you were to hand out demerit points for poor discipline, don't put Dugan in the same category as Carney.
These latest allegations aside, previous court files already show that Dugan has a lead-foot.
Speeding cannot be condoned and should be punishable by law, but show me a 21-year-old with a V8 who hasn't. I'm not being an apologist here, just a realist.
The Raiders were accused yesterday by Sydney media of protecting Dugan, by not disclosing his alleged driving offences to the NRL or the public. Did they expect a press release?
The NRL didn't seem too disturbed it hadn't received a heads-up call. For the record, The Canberra Times tried to contact NRL boss David Gallop for his thoughts on that very matter yesterday. Gallop was in meetings and unavailable.
But an NRL spokesperson simply passed on that they were content for the courts and Raiders to handle this one.
Compare that to when the Raiders sacked Carney. Gallop was handed a dossier so thick with indiscretions that the NRL boss had no choice but to ban him from signing with a rival club for a year.
Carney never had an issue with his attitude to training hard or turning up to sign autographs for kids at community engagements. His big issue was alcohol.
It was the common denominator in all his bad behaviour. A Goulburn magistrate once warned him he'd been just one beer away from being sent to jail after a drink-driving conviction. Another magistrate sensationally banned him from his home town.
But still he continued drinking. Drink driving. Evading police. Setting mates' bums on fire, urinating on others in public bars.
Before sacking him, the Raiders offered him a plan for rehabilitation, which included giving up footy and beer for a while and getting his life back in order. He turned his nose up at it.
Carney did eventually give up alcohol for a short time and, not coincidentally, won a Dally M Medal. He then took it back up and got sacked again, this time by the Roosters.
Raw ability, as possessed by players such as Dugan and Carney, will always get you a shot in the NRL. But once you've been given that opportunity, attitude is the thing that decides your sustainability in one of the world's toughest competitions.
Apart from his driving, this has been Dugan's other downfall in the past. He's never had a disciplinary breach relating to alcohol.
He's a super player who gets himself up for the big games, but who has had a tendency not to get up when the alarm's going off for training.
Those in the know say it's been an improvement this pre-season.
The Raiders, at the instigation of their leadership group, now has a fine system at the club. It starts at $100 for a first offence, and can go as high as $5000 suspended fines for repeat offenders. Offences can range from wearing the wrong pair of socks to training, to missing a massage. One minute late, is the same as 20 minutes late.
Dugan coughed up his share of fines last season. There hasn't been one this pre-season.
There is a certain aloofness to Dugan that can come across as arrogance and selfishness. But nobody should begrudge a player of his ability currently testing his market-value in the NRL. Hopefully Dugan also realises at some point that a marquee value comes with marquee status.
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