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Sports

​So, Why Did Josh Papalii Dob Himself In For Drink Driving?

In a cruel blow for the suspense arc of this story, the magistrate did not hear what point Papalii was trying to make by calling police to tell them he was drink driving.

When police found the Canberra Raiders, Queensland and Australian Test prop, Josh Papalii parked outside Hungry Jacks at 2.15 am in the morning it didn't take Detective Kojak to figure out what had transpired.

The 24-year-old, 112 kilogram Australian-Samoan was slurring his speech, hiccoughing, and had bloodshot, watery eyes. He was obviously maggot.

The weird thing, as police were about to find out, was that it was Papalii who phoned triple-000 to report himself for drunk driving. In fact, he did it twice. But why?

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"To prove a point," the prop forward mumbled to police at the time. What point Papalii was trying to make remains unclear. In a cruel blow for the suspense arc of this story the magistrate never asked him, simply calling it "bizarre behaviour" and asking prosecutors what he was should make of "that curious feature of the evidence," reports the Canberra Times.

Papalii blew 0.123 and was charged with drink driving. He has been fined $1000 and suspended from driving for eight months. The breach is his third serious driving offence since 2014 when he was busted for driving with a suspended license for unpaid parking fines. On another occasion he was forced to apologise after throwing a one-litre bottle of moisturising cream at a motorist.

Papalii is likely to face further penalties from the NRL and his club, the Canberra Raiders for the incident, though has managed, at this point, to retain his spot in the Australian test team for next week's ANZAC test match against, New Zealand.

The decision by Australian coach, Mal Meninga, looks on face value to be a contradiction with his now famous 'no dickheads' policy, which saw NSW prop, Andrew Fifita stood down after he expressed support for convicted one-punch killer Kieran Loveridge. While Parramatta Eels try-scoring machine, Semi Radradra, was also overlooked for Australian duties last year because he was waiting to confront charges of domestic violence. Meninga has said he will wait to see what action the NRL and Raiders take before he makes a decision.

Papalii had been at teammate Jarod Croker's engagement party hours earlier but after returning home and having a "discussion" with his wife, went back out go get something to eat. That his wife wasn't able to stop him isn't surprising. It's hard to imagine anything more terrifying then a drunk, h-angry Josh Papalii at two in the morning.

The first anonymous tip off police received reported a black Jeep driving on the wrong side of the rode. They received a second call shortly after before locating the vehicle with Papalii in it and finding both triple-o calls had come from his phone.