Dragons players Tim Lafai and Siliva Havili stood down over drunken night out

Lafai and Havili were both absent from Dragons training on Tuesday as the the club and NRL Integrity Unit continue investigations into two incidents in the early hours of Sunday morning.

A Port Kembla man spoke to the Mercury on Monday alleging that he was knocked unconscious by Havili outside popular nightspot Fever. He later attended hospital to received treatment for a head wound.

Havili and Lafai were later arrested in Crown Street at around 5am after CCTV cameras allegedly captured them fighting with three men outside 7-11, in a conflict not linked to the incident at Fever. They were subsequently charged with with affray and offensive behaviour and will appear in Wollongong Local Court on September 6.

Skipper Gareth Widdop was left to front the media on Tuesday and was tight-lipped on the incident which comes amid heavy criticism of his side’s on-field performance following three straight losses.

“The NRL Integrity Unit is dealing with that and that’s all I can say on that at the moment,” Widdop said.

“It’s hard to comment because we don’t know exactly what’s gone on but it’s not ideal. It’s being investigated, the NRL are doing their best to resolve it and until then it’s hard to comment.

“We don’t really know what’s happened yet that’s the problem at the moment. There’s two sides to every story.

“Things like this aren’t ideal but, in terms of the playing group, there’s nothing we can do about what’s going on outside [the club]. Our job’s to go out there and perform and we need to [because] the last few weeks have been a little bit disappointing.

“We took a step in the right direction on the weekend [against the Tigers] but we need to play for a lot longer, for 80 minutes. It’s in our hands, we’ve got a big game on Friday and that’s our focus at the moment.”