IN THE week he returned to Melbourne after 40 days of specialised holistic treatment in northern NSW, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan knew his desired return to the Western Bulldogs would be dependent on the clearance of one man, coach Luke Beveridge.

The two met in a cafe last week, where the wayward 23-year-old made a compelling pitch to be given one more chance of resurrecting a football career at the club which recruited him at No.1 in the 2020 national draft.

With the Beveridge box, the main box, ticked on Ugle-Hagan’s to-do list, he then got to tick other boxes. CEO Ameet Bains invited him to his home for another meeting, with the club’s football operations manager Sam Power also in attendance.

There was also a chat with captain Marcus Bontempelli and vice-captain Tom Liberatore at a light training session. A catch-up with deputy vice-captain Aaron Naughton, one of Ugle-Hagan’s closest friends before his relationship with the Bulldogs frayed to breaking point, allowed another box to be ticked on the Ugle-Hagan checklist.

With all those key Bulldogs people giving the all-clear for a Ugle-Hagan return, on Monday morning Ugle-Hagan re-entered the club’s Mission Whitten Oval facilities, where he addressed the playing group and conceded he had erred in some of his actions stretching as far back as late last season.

Of course, it is all words to this point, and the only true way back to AFL football for Ugle-Hagan, be it in a Bulldogs guernsey or that of a rival, will be through sustained meaningful action.

But the words last week and on Monday sounded different to those listening to them than they had before Ugle-Hagan had spent his 40 days under the care of the NSW retreat.

An intense wellness program, incorporating equine therapy, clearly made positive change to his mental outlook. And his employment on-the-side of a personal trainer, which was signed off by the retreat, at least allowed his body to be ready for a 90-minute training session at Whitten Oval on Tuesday, the day after he formally re-entered club operations.

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Ugle-Hagan wants to play in the VFL as early as this weekend. The Bulldogs’ high performance and physical conditioning bosses are of the view he will need a minimum four, and more likely six weeks, to properly reacquaint his body with the demands of this sport, even at VFL level.

And everyone fears an injury at an early stage of this attempted comeback.

Ugle-Hagan’s behaviour and attitude since August last year, and possibly even before that, had been so poor that many at the Bulldogs had resigned themselves to him being lost to the club.

While frustrations had reached boiling point, there had always been an awareness from key people at the Bulldogs that certain “heavy” situations in Ugle-Hagan’s life had adversely impacted him. But those people have been clearly buoyed by what they saw, and more importantly heard, post the time spent at the NSW retreat.

To those people, who ultimately will determine his football future, the commitment made by Ugle-Hagan to attend the retreat was the first tangible sign of him wanting to help himself. And they hope that the experience has given him the required clarity around what lies ahead for him at the Bulldogs.

Contracted to the Bulldogs for 2026, the public line from everyone, now that Ugle-Hagan has returned, will be that he will be playing in the red, white and blue next season.

That is far from guaranteed, and the Sydney Swans, Brisbane Lions, and maybe Hawthorn and Melbourne, will be monitoring his actions very closely.

A senior game of football with the Bulldogs this season is also far from guaranteed. Relationships may have been mended to the point where he has been given this final chance. Trust, the No.1 non-negotiable requirement of all players on AFL lists, is a long way from being fixed, though.

But a week ago he had no chance and now he’s got one final one. And all outcomes are back in his control.