Mullen noted that Sam Burgess served his coaching apprenticeship in the same competition, leading the Orara Valley Axemen to the 2022 Group 2 grand final before joining South Sydney as an assistant and then taking the top job at Super League club Warrington.
Carney and Mullen, who both played in the halves for NSW, turned their lives upside down after the highly publicized incidents ended their NRL playing days.
Todd Carney with the Sharks in 2012.Credit: Steve Christo
Carney’s turbulent 166-game career ended in 2014 when he was sacked by Cronulla following a series of alcohol-related incidents and deregistered by the governing body after the infamous “bubbler” photo appeared on social media.
Despite playing a further four seasons in Super League, he never returned to the NRL and is perhaps better remembered for off-field offenses than as a player who won a Dally M medal and represented NSW and Australia.
In retirement, Carney married, became a father, ran his own concreting business and reportedly stayed sober for more than two years.
In an Instagram post, the 39-year-old said working for the Titans is “something I don’t take for granted for a second.”
“It wasn’t handed to me. It was earned,” he said.
Mullen’s ultimate goal is also to work in the NRL, but he believes he also has something to offer the code as a qualified drug and alcohol counsellor, knowing better than most the devastating impact illegal substances can have on a sportsperson’s career and life.
Mullen tested positive for a banned steroid in 2016, which he said was prescribed by a physical therapist he was seeing privately to treat a chronic hamstring injury. This led to a four-year WADA ban and ended his 211-game NRL career at the age of 29.
A devastated Mullen, who like Carney made his NRL debut as an 18-year-old, admitted his life would soon “spiral” without the structure of professional football.
He recalled that at one stage he was doing “three to four grams of coke a day for six months” before it all culminated in a near-fatal overdose at his parents’ house. When he wakes up in the hospital, he immediately enters rehab and, seven years later, is proud to say that he has not touched drugs or alcohol since.
Jarrod Mullen during his final season with Newcastle in 2016.Credit: Getty Images
“To this day, I say the overdose is probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
“It happened for a reason and it made me wake up to myself.
However, his suffering was not over.
When Mullen came out of rehab, he soon faced a new dilemma. Earlier surveillance emerged and he was charged with supplying cocaine.
He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and avoided prison. For the next 12 months, he went to St Vincent de Paul twice a week to fold second-hand clothes for eight hours a day.
Meanwhile, the former Knights captain was completing a TAFE course to become a drug and alcohol counsellor.
When his WADA ban expired, Mullen made a bold attempt to return to the NRL at the age of 34, signing with Melbourne’s Queensland Cup feeder team, the Sunshine Coast Falcons.
A shoulder injury hit him hard, but Mullen went on to play for the Corrimal Cougars in the Illawarra competition, then the Port Macquarie Breakers on the Mid-North Coast last year, only to rupture his Achilles tendon aged 38.
“I certainly know I have a lot to give back to the NRL and the generation that comes through,” he said.
Eighteen-year-old Jarrod Mullen and his significant other, Andrew Johns.Credit: Tim Clayton
“I’ve been at the highest highs and the lowest lows, so I know what to expect, I know what the kids go through, I know the pressure and all that.
“I’d like to help them through. It doesn’t have to be football related, it can be something off the field.”
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“Everything I’ve been through, if I can help one kid get through life or career and be a better person, I’m definitely happy to help anyone I can.”
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