Josh Dugan shares a lighter moment with Beau Scott during the Blues' team photo session in Coffs Harbour this week. Credit:Brendan Esposito Another one bites the dust thanks to Twitter. A real thigh-slapping moment in the past two years came when Josh Dugan sat atop a Canberra rooftop drinking a mid-morning pineapple vodka Cruiser with Blake Ferguson in the background, middle finger saluted in the most memorable selfie this side of George Burgess. Oh how we retweeted. Oh how we shared. Oh how we laughed. You have to. What we don't see, though, are the moments when the laughs have stopped at the footballer's expense.

Happy place: Josh Dugan. Credit:James Brickwood We don't see Dugan walking from the field after Origin II last year, having found his way into the side through injury to Josh Morris, then down the tunnel and to the left and into the home dressing-room and then breaking down in tears. You won't see that on social media. There's no joke in that. "Once we were in the sheds, I let it get the better of me," Dugan confides. "I lost it. It hit me a bit harder [than the other players] because I was lucky to be there. I could've been watching it at home on the couch, with no career. And then I was there being a part of it." Dugan had missed game one of last year's breakthrough series, when the Blues finally snapped eight years of Queensland domination, largely because of his own mistakes.

He'd missed one of Laurie Daley's pre-season meetings, and the Blues coach didn't forget it when it came to selection for game one. "He didn't turn up for a meeting," Daley reveals. "So given he didn't turn up, we left him out of the next camp." Did it cost him a spot in the side for game one? "It wasn't the sole reason," says Daley, "but it was part of it." Dugan heads into this Origin opener at fullback, ready to unleash the same unbridled, galloping running game of the man whose prodigious shoes he must fill: Jarryd Hayne. Few have ever doubted Dugan's ability, ever since he sprung out of a housing commission in the Canberra district of Tuggeranong and into first grade at the age of 18 with a rat's tail.

It's the man who remains misunderstood. The pineapple Cruiser punchline. It's easy to wonder if the bloke splattered in tattoos who was a mug at Canberra, who went out on that ill-fated night with Ferguson ahead of the Origin II camp in 2013, who was ultimately sacked by the Raiders and was then without a club for months, has turned it all around because he had to. "Once I got the sack from Canberra, I realised I couldn't keep doing those things," Dugan says of his off-field behaviour at his former club. "They kept getting me into trouble. Something had to give - or I had to give it away. I sat down and thought long and hard about it. There was a point when I nearly gave it up. I sat there for a good month and pondered on whether to give it up and get out of the spotlight. I was copping flak and it was getting a bit much to handle." When he arrived at the Dragons, many supporters of the proud club didn't want him there. No bad boys here, thanks. We've got enough problems. Cut to an after-match function at Wollongong on Sunday night following the Dragons' win over Canberra at WIN Stadium.

"She said she was one of those fans as well," Dugan smiles. "She said, 'Why do we keep signing these bad boys? But after watching you do the things you have for the last two years, I couldn't be prouder that you're a Dragon'. For me, that was really humbling. It made me realise I've come a long way." The signs that Dugan, 25, wanted to change were clear in his first few weeks at the Dragons. One of the conditions of his re-admittance to the NRL was that he underwent social media training. He was told to sit in with the under-20s squad for one lecture. "They were telling us about the dos and don'ts of social media," he recalls. "Then the one of me came up: the one of me and Fergo on the roof. That's a big don't." So he stood before the under-20s players, and told them not to make the same mistakes he had.

"I've learnt the hard way," he told them. "You don't want to be risking your career and your dream for one stupid photo that could cost you everything. It almost cost me everything." Dragons coach Paul McGregor knew what he was getting with Dugan when he took over from Steve Price midway through last year. He'd coached Dugan during his time as Country coach, and remembered the kid who was one step ahead of most in video sessions, such was his football nous. He also wasn't ready to judge. "If the worst thing you can ever do is drink a Cruiser on the roof, there would be a lot of people in jail," says McGregor. "I think it was more of a dumb thing to do than being out to hurt anyone. It's part of growing up." The Dragons are quick to soften Dugan's record at the Raiders. In reality, he had a long rap sheet at his former club. While Ferguson had been involved in five incidents before being sacked, Dugan had been embroiled in 19 - including three incidents involving police and one court appearance.

That might be ancient history, but it also explains how far Dugan has come - and how much he needed a change from Canberra. The difference extends beyond the flashy plays, and McGregor sees it more than most. He is convinced Dugan can be a crack right centre - just as he was - but knows he's needed at fullback for club and state right now. He also sees the try-saving tackles. He also sees the bags of ice on Dugan's ankle, knee and elbow in the dressing-room after matches. The accepted view on Dugan at Canberra was that a broken eyelash would sideline him for at least two weeks. Fearless fullbacks play busted. For the Dragons, he is finally doing so. Says McGregor: "When you are going to become the player he can be, you've got to look at how players like [Billy] Slater and [Cameron] Smith can do it, you have to do that."

After Dugan made his debut for Australia on the wing against New Zealand in the Anzac Test - "I have new respect for wingers," he laughs - he was battling to be fit for the Dragons' next match against South Sydney 10 days later. "I had a slight hyperextension and cork, and a heap of fluid in my knee," he says. "If I had been at Canberra, with the same attitude I had when I was there, there is no way I would've been able to play against Souths on the Monday night. But I gave myself every chance to play." And he did. Part of that meticulous preparation means there is no room for Cruisers or any other form of alcohol.

On that score, he's definitely changed. "There's no more of me out until the lights come on at nightclubs," he says. "I'll have the odd beer on the weekend, if that. And if we're not playing. I'm pretty focused and know what I want. I just grew out of it. And grew up." Which brings us to Origin, where NSW players have barely touched a drop of booze in the lead-up to matches over the past two campaigns. When Dugan missed that meeting with Daley at the start of last year, he met him in person to apologise. "In the past, I would have let that slide and wouldn't have cared," he admits. "I care a lot about playing for NSW, and Loz, and the players. I didn't want to go back to what people thought of me at Canberra."

Says Daley: "He's a real leader now. You can see a real maturity in him. He's a leader on the field. He's a guy who is very knowledgeable about his footy. He knows he has made mistakes, but it's how you bounce back from mistakes." The punchline that has been Josh Dugan will quickly disappear if he can do for NSW in this series what Hayne did for them in the last. He was more than effective at centre for NSW, and McGregor kept him there for the Dragons for the rest of the season. "I've shown that I can handle that stage - I think I can fill the shoes of Jarryd Hayne," he says without hubris, just confidence. "I'm a fullback, but a different sort of fullback. I can ball play every now and then, put I prefer to run and beat people. I felt like I scratched the surface at centre last year." Somewhere in the world, Ferguson will be watching. He's undergone his own renaissance at the Roosters, although he's presently in the US for revolutionary treatment on a broken ankle.