KICKOFF: Tinfoil hat brigade shooting the messenger in Xerri case

With that cleared, it seemed that great scrappin' son-of-a-steel-worker Peter V'landys had got it all over the line. A global health pandemic and warring broadcasters seemed to be in the rear vision mirror.

Throw in TikTok scandals, a street fight captured on a phone and the John Bateman contract circus, the lead-up to Thursday's resumption seemed like a run-of-the-mill NRL preseason.

This column was initially going to address the latter (don't get me started) until the Bronson Xerri bomb dropped on Tuesday. Little wonder V'landys has no interest in becoming NRL CEO. He probably wants to stick to horse racing; it's a cleaner business.

How Xerri ended up in this position is difficult to fathom. He's not the type you'd consider a usual suspect; then again, who is? On the surface though, it's one of the stranger instances.

This isn't Jarrod Mullen, a guy past the age of 30 with a career at risk of ending due to injury who evidently felt it was worth rolling the dice. It's no more excusable, but certainly more fathomable.

So to Sandor Earl, a regular first-grader but a journeyman across multiple clubs who ended up at the same table as Mullen after consecutive shoulder surgeries and also put all his chips in. He's received more sympathy than he probably should've but, again, wasn't that hard to get one's head around.

When it comes to Xerr, we're talking about a 19-year-old of such potential and high hopes he knocked back a $2 million-plus five-year contract extension earlier this year because his value was only set to skyrocket the more he played.

This Xerri bomb came out of nowhere. V'landys is far too savvy to have undertaken the lengthy 'mission accomplished' interviews published over the weekend if he knew this was coming.

You would think Xerri himself wouldn't have fronted media trumping his newly acquired speed with the accompanying 'fastest in the game headlines'. It's fair to say it blindsided everyone.

What's bizarre, but not all that surprising, is how quick people within the game have been to point the finger at ASADA, questioning the timing and motive of the charge; talk about shooting the messenger.

Paul Gallen, who's the first to admit he's no fan of ASADA, was one of the first to question the government body's motives, while on Fox Sports on Tuesday night Dragons prop James Graham said he'd have "more questions for ASADA than Bronson Xerri."

This columnist rarely disagrees with Graham, one of the game's genuine thinkers, but we do on this one. I mean, sure, I'd have a few for ASADA as well, but more than I'd have for the player who has tested positive for four different anabolic steroids? Yeah, nah.

The six-month period between the positive test and the provisional ban raises an eyebrow, but the suggestion the government anti-doping body deliberately sat on it to drop it on the eve of the season as part of anti-rugby league conspiracy is dead-set tin-foil hat stuff.

Even if you wouldn't put it past them, what's more likely - that there's an anti-NRL agenda that runs to the very top of a government agency; or that, given the cocktail found in the sample, it took time to fully analyse, review and finally level a charge of such significance?

Would people prefer ASADA jumped the gun? Leveled a charge of such magnitude without dotting every i and crossing every t? Have either a cheat get off on a technicality or a young man smeared by a case that wasn't watertight?

Some have pushed the slightly more plausible line that ASADA were looking for publicity in leveling the charge when it did. Even if it did, it's a moot point. Without the four different substances appearing in a player's sample, they haven't got a bomb to detonate.

The fact the club let Josh Morris go to the Roosters is no doubt grating for the Sharks and club's fans, but it's utterly irrelevant as far ASADA goes.

It's not the job of a government anti-doping body to assist clubs in managing their roster, particularly one with an uncomfortable history in this area.

The Sharks should be less concerned with ASADA's protocols and more concerned about the fact a player ended up in this situation on their watch. Again.

Of course we haven't heard Xerri's side of things yet. I've got no doubt, however it plays out, people will find some sympathy for the kid who had the world at his feet and has seemingly thrown it all away, one suspects on some bad advice

We're unlikely to hear a tainted meat, shared blender or water bottle being tampered with type explanation. None those old chestnuts above would explain these extraordinary results.

He may yet have his B sample tested, we may hear some plausible explanation. As he said himself through his representatives on Wednesday.

"I'm devastated but I'm bound by the system so there is not much more I can say at this stage," Xerri said in the statement.

"There is a process in place that I am required to follow. I'm shattered I'm not playing with the boys this weekend and I wish them all the best for Saturday."

Indeed there is a process to play out. As most people have rightly said, we should reserve final judgement until it has. We don't want to rush to any conclusions; ASADA certainly didn't.