Players hint at boycott over pay
spoke on behalf of their team-mates when they reiterated that they wouldn’t leave New Zealand, even with an exemption to enter Australia, until the pay structure was agreed.
The Warriors have spent the past month in lockdown under New Zealand government restrictions, and aren’t willing to take a chance on having to spend 14 days in isolation if the NRL is unable to strike a deal.
While the NRL is confident it will get the necessary approvals to start the 20-round season on May 28, the Warriors will not leave it to chance. As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, Channel Nine has indicated to the NRL it wants to pay A$90 million of the A$118m it is contracted to pay this year.
The game is bracing for a combined A$60m shortfall between Nine and Fox Sports, and the players are demanding to know how much of an impact that will have on their salaries before they consider leaving their families for the next five months.
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It’s been a long time coming, but former All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen has finally unloaded over the controversial reversed penalty that cost his side a shot at a series victory over the British and Irish Lions in 2017.
Hansen is the inaugural interview with former Black Cap and newly anointed Bert
Sutcliffe Medal winner Ian
Smith on his new show The Pod on Sky Sport last night, and he does not disappoint if the teaser released on the broadcaster’s social media channels is anything to go by.
The long-time All Blacks coach, who ended a 16-year association with the team at the end of last year’s disappointing World Cup campaign in Japan, has unloaded on World Rugby’s lack of what he deemed an appropriate response to the referee howler that ultimately decided the series.
A riveting, and controversial, series ended locked at 1-1 when the deciding third test at Eden Park finished in a 15-15 draw in contentious circumstances.
Referee Romain Poite’s 78thminute decision effectively decided the contest when he changed, under video review, a penalty to the All Blacks from a spot handy to the posts to a scrum for accidental offside. At the time the contest was poised at 15-15.
He had initially awarded a penalty when Lions hooker Ken Owens, from an offside position, played at a ball that came off fullback Liam Williams in the air. The Lions player appeared to give himself up as the transgressor at the time.
But Poite was then persuaded to go to the TMO to review the call and ultimately changed his decision, despite there apparently being no evidence for him to do so. At the time Hansen refused to condemn the decision and would not buy into any direct criticism of it when asked by media. Even since his retirement he had seemed reluctant to point any fingers, saying in one recent interview the decision had been ‘‘frustrating’’ because it ‘‘was so obvious to everybody, but no one wanted to admit to it’’.
But Hansen has told Smith in the first show of his new series that he was most disappointed