Where's Blake?
That was the question on the lips of several perplexed members at the Roosters' season launch late last month at Easts Leagues Club.
"Could he not be bothered coming?" one asked.
He could. The simple fact of it was he could not.
Blake Ferguson might be all about right now: the next training session, the first trial, the first match back in the NRL after 20 months – but he's still paying for the past.
He wasn't here on this night because of conditions set by a Sydney court last year for indecently assaulting a woman during a night out at Cronulla's 2230 Bar in June 2013.
He was placed on a good behaviour bond, and one of those conditions forbids him from going anywhere near a licensed premises.
A small price to pay, surely, given how close the 24-year-old had come to blowing his football career – and how close he'd come to jail?
What impressed his teammates and officials was that Ferguson was the one who told them he wasn't coming. At the moment when he could've bent the rules, just a little, he stayed away.
"No, I can't go there," he told them.
Says teammate Shaun Kenny-Dowall: "He talks about the past a lot. He says how hard it's been working nine to five, and he realises how good it is to do what you love. He'd taken that for granted."
Just as country music has too many love songs, rugby league has too many stories of redemption.
This isn't one of them.
"It hasn't been that at all, so it would be risky to write as much," advises Roosters coach Trent Robinson. "It's more about reality. There's a lot to go for him. There's been a stable environment for him, but there hasn't been the ups and downs of a win and a loss. That's next."
The rollercoaster starts on Saturday night in Townsville when Ferguson lines up at right centre for the Roosters against the Cowboys.
Naturally, many fans are of the belief that he doesn't deserve the chance. Another footballer breaks the law, assaults a woman no less, but gets another chance.
It fills talkback but life is never that clear-cut.
Over the space of three weeks in 2013, Ferguson showed what he had and how little regard he had for it.
He arrived as an Origin player in helping NSW to victory against Queensland in game one of the series. Weeks later, after he was selected for game two, he and then-Canberra teammate Josh Dugan couldn't help themselves, venturing out for a few drinks at a pub, which led to a few drinks to a Cronulla nightclub, which led to …
As the NSW team assembled in camp, news broke that Ferguson had been charged with indecently assaulting a woman. Even by rugby league standards, the scandal was brutal in its timing and the damage done.
He was ultimately sacked by Canberra, received a good behaviour bond but appealed, claiming mistaken identity.
"Touching any woman under a dress in that area is to commit an act which ordinary people would find the charge proven," said Judge Michael Finnane. "It is an intended assault."
Ferguson left court with a clean criminal record after being placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond, but the judge left these words ringing in his ear.
"Alcohol is your enemy," Judge Finnane said. "Not your friend."
And that's the point when it comes to Ferguson.
His back story is ugly. It's pockmarked with violence and alcohol. Football was the way out.
After Canberra sacked him, the NRL - which has rarely been more conscious about the image of the game - wasn't having him back in a hurry.
Favourable newspaper stories about Ferguson turning the corner under the wing of cousin Anthony Mundine and converting to Islam conflicted heavily with the sight of him at various bars. It fuelled the circus.
Roosters chairman Nick Politis, though, thought he could help. In other words, provide the family that Ferguson has seemingly never had.
"Sometimes, we turn our backs on these kids," Politis says. "When you look at their background, we should be doing more to help them. We're not always successful but at least it's good to have a go. If you put a bit of time into the person involved, you get it back in spades. We did it with Jake [Friend]. We did it with [Todd] Carney, but politics got us there. Hopefully, we're successful with Blake."
The cynical view is that Politis merely wanted to pay whatever he wanted, for a class player, no matter the consequence.
There's no argument the Roosters wanted a superstar, because they knew in 2013 that Sonny Bill Williams would be leaving for rugby union.
Robinson bristles at claims of opportunism.
"If the NRL didn't have a hard stance on it, definitely," the coach says of that perception. "But we've put a lot of time and effort into him, along with Blake. He's had a long period off. It shouldn't be life sentences for every infringement that happens in footy. He's served the time that he should. I actually agree with the length of time he served. Has it been the harshest [suspension] handed out? I agree with their hard stance, and they should be applauded for that, because it made Blake realise his actions."
Under Robinson, the Roosters have undergone a cultural revolution.
The glamour club have long been renowned as the party club, stretching back to the 1970s. Ricky Stuart once banned his players from attending Kings Cross with varying success.
In 2011, Carney, Nate Myles and Frank-Paul Nuuausala were photographed outside the Courthouse Hotel in Taylor Square in the early hours of the morning, on a school night. The Roosters' reputation preceded them again.
Robinson has worked hard to change that culture, so when Mitchell Pearce and Boyd Cordner step out of line as they did last year, it hurt.
With this in mind, almost everyone at the Roosters - coaches, players, staff and fans - had apprehensions about bringing the damaged goods of Blake Ferguson into their set-up.
"I had my apprehensions, because we'd been strong on trying to build the right culture," Robinson says. "Some of the issues at Canberra were mixed in there as well, in terms of not going to training that day with Josh, that we all saw. They were a couple of things I needed to work out whether he'd believe or fit into our culture. I had reservations at the start, but they were all based on having never met him. I had to work out whether he was honest or not. Not whether he'd done some bad things I hadn't agreed with. It was about honesty.
"We always say in footy, there's never a bad first interview with players. You're always excited about having someone like Blake Ferguson in your club. After a couple of meetings, I realised he couldn't help but tell the truth. You could see he was working hard on improving himself.
"I don't know how much he knows, but there was apprehension from staff and the playing side as well. They'd worked really hard to get themselves into a strong position as a club. It's a constant battle. We enjoy the good times, but we're really protective of looking after ourselves. Initially, he had to prove himself to those guys."
Ferguson doesn't merely waltz back into the game this weekend.
The NRL made him do a score of educational courses and counseling sessions before registering his contract late last year.
He worked in the Roosters head office in May as an office boy. His court conditions prevented him from working with children.
When the NRL permitted him to train with the NRL squad, he nervously shifted in his training gear like a rookie on his first day.
Shaun Kenny-Dowall put him at ease after a nanosecond.
He was the first to approach the new player. The fact Ferguson was about to take his right centre position, nudging the premiership winner out to the wing wasn't lost on Robinson or his teammates.
"Just wanted to make him feel welcome, eh?" says the affable Kenny-Dowall. "There was a lot of talk that he would play centre and I would play wing, so I wanted to make him feel comfortable from the outset. It's just the way we are at the club."
The Kiwi centre says it was clear, within a matter of training sessions, that Ferguson wasn't taking anything for granted any longer.
"We all saw his ability and we quickly became excited about what he could bring to the side," he says. "It didn't take long for him to earn the boys' respect - we knew early on that he was serious."
Stories bounce around Moore Park about how aggressive Ferguson has been at training during the pre-season.
Kenny-Dowall laughs when you mention this.
"He leaves it all out there," he reports. "There's been a few blow-ups out there. That's the way he plays."
Many hands have helped pull Ferguson along the way since he arrived at the Roosters, but the hands that have helped the most belong to Gavin Lester, the former Bulldogs - and briefly Roosters - player who is now the club's welfare officer.
"I'm indigenous as well, so it was easy for us to talk about where we have come from," Lester says. "Everybody has got a story about where they've come from, and where they've been. The important thing for him is to focus on where he can go from here."
Lester is in charge of Ferguson's future, with a possible TAFE course in carpentry to come.
So, too, is Ferguson's girlfriend, Bianca. The pair are expecting their first child later this year.
The Roosters are aware that fans remain wary, though. They talk about wanting to let them meet "the real Blake Ferguson".
Says Lester: "We have to win back the critics. By putting him in front of fans, you're going to fall in love with Blake Ferguson."
Politis is already there. He phones most of his players regularly, but more so Ferguson.
"He's a good guy," the Roosters long-term benefactor says. "He's got a good heart. He's starting to learn what it's all about. If it goes well, hopefully he will be here for the rest of his career. If he stays off the alcohol, that's a big thing. He hasn't handled that well. But he feels like he belongs with people who care."
Where can it go from here?
Laurie Daley has already spoken about the possibility of selecting him for Origin, two years after Ferguson trashed NSW's campaign.
Robinson laughs when you suggest it's dangerous to think that far ahead.
He says: "It's dangerous to think beyond round two."
