The 23-year-old has not played for the Western Bulldogs since the 2024 finals series, having stepped away from football in the pre-season to go on indefinite personal leave.
In an exclusive interview with the Saturday Herald Sun, Bulldogs head coach Luke Beveridge has not yet given up hope of being able to reconnect with Ugle-Hagan to reintegrate him into the team's 2024 AFL season.
But the coach gave his first suggestions that the club won't be waiting around forever as long as Ugle-Hagan shows little intent to return to top-flight football, also revealing that commitment issues involving Ugle-Hagan have been a long-term problem.
"I don’t know (if he will play for us again), that is the serious answer. He will tell you he does, but the actions don’t back the words up,” Beveridge said.
“It is going to take a lot of time to build trust again with everyone.
“The thing about compliance and punctuality and being in a program you have to be there. You can’t choose which days you don’t come.
“And that has probably been his existence over this year until recently when he has been away from the club.”
The club has allocated significant financial and human resources into Ugle-Hagan's wellbeing in that time, but staff at the club are reportedly becoming increasingly incensed at his posting of workout videos on social media at the same time that he has been absent from club training for three weeks.
Ugle-Hagan is contracted to the end of 2026, on an annual salary reportedly in the vicinity of $8-900,000, and has been linked among some circles with a potential move to Geelong in 2026.
Beveridge told the Herald Sun that talks between the two parties have recently stalled.
"The plan was to have that meeting (with the AFL) and then sit down and work out what that pathway was or is, and being totally re-engaged and possibly playing again.
“But because that either didn’t happen or hasn’t happened, and I have been unable to have that conversation with him.
"We hope he is connecting with the medical experts and from time-to-time our practitioners and that the penny will drop at some point, and we can turn it around.
“But if it doesn’t happen over the remainder of the season, then I don’t know. It will probably come to a head.”