7th Tackle: Tigers a no-show after Mad Monday cruise

The most shocking revelation in Tim Simona’s tell-all confessional was his decision to throw ex-teammates under the bus over alleged cocaine use.

Simona claimed he first used the drug on a Mad Monday cruise, along with “six or seven” others, in a toilet cubicle. Simona recalled the incident occurred three years ago, but the cruise was actually held at the end of 2015.

Even more interesting is what took place two days later. After being given the following day off to recover, the entire team was called into Concord for one-on-one season reviews with the coaching staff.

We’ve been told around half a dozen – Simona included – called in sick.

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Several claimed they were suffering from food poisoning. It’s now well-known the NRL has been cracking down on in-house drug tests post Mad Monday.

We've been told testers were present that morning at Concord that morning.

And take it as fact last year’s Mad Monday celebrations nabbed more culprits than just Ben Barba. The NRL cannot confirm it, but there’s good mail that one club returned as many as eight positives.