THEY won’t impinge on the celebration of a self-confessed former “rat bag” with the signing of another but Cowboys head of football Peter Parr has confirmed that a decision on whether to offer Todd Carney an NRL lifeline will be made sooner rather than later.

Friday night’s celebration of Johnathan Thurston’s dual milestones of 300 NRL games and breaking Matt Bowen’s record for most games for the Cowboys is the sole focus of club officials this week but the potential of signing Carney is ‘bubbling’ along in the background.

The disgraced former Raider, Rooster and Shark hasn’t played in the NRL since Round 16, 2014 but is back in Australia preparing to play his first game for the Northern Pride in the Intrust Super Cup in Cairns on Saturday night.

Ben Ikin and Ben Glover are joined by Cowboys football manager Peter Parr to discuss Todd Carney’s potential deal and the 2018 NRL recruits to watch.

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Speaking on the Fox NRL Market Watch podcast, Parr said that the club is still considering whether or not to offer the 31-year-old a contract but added that if they do it will be sent to the NRL in the very near future.

“The first thing we’ve got to do is work out whether we offer him a contract,” Parr said. “We’re doing our own due diligence on that.

“The NRL have said publicly that they won’t make any decisions on Todd until a contract is put in front of them.

“We’ll work out whether we want to pursue that with Todd and his management, we’ll do that in the next short period of time.

“We’ve got a big day Friday so not expecting things to happen too quickly and if we do decide to go ahead with that we’ll put a contract in front of the NRL.

“There’s a process to go through, I don’t think it’s overly complicated. We work out whether we want to offer him a contract, if we do we’ll put something together and put it in front of the NRL and they’ll give us some feedback.”

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Given the controversy swirling around Matt Lodge’s imminent return to NRL football with the Broncos on Thursday night, the grounds for the NRL to reject an application for Carney to play for the Cowboys will be examined intensely.

According to NRL 360 host Ben Ikin, the registration of Lodge should make any contract for Carney a fait accompli.

Todd Carney’s last game in the NRL was a 24-22 win with the Sharks over the Broncos in Round 16, 2014. Photo: Bradley Kanaris Source: Getty Images

“There is talk that the NRL won’t register Todd Carney and I just can’t make sense of who’s allowed in, who’s allowed back, why they deregister, why they knock back registration,” Ikin said.

“Because it would seem, on the surface — and this is the issue with the NRL because they never give you all the information — that if Matt Lodge is playing top flight rugby league in this country, then Todd Carney should absolutely be allowed back.”

You can also subscribe via iTunes or for Android users, listen on the iPP Podcast Player app.