Kiwis again suck on NRL’s raw prawn

The Kiwis appear to have again copped the raw end of the stick from the NRL. The suspension last night of New Zealand prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona was another example of curious decision-making by the game’s governing body.

The Storm forward received a three-game ban and issued with a suspended A$15,000 fine for his involvement in the brawl outside a Bali bar. A video of the incident has been circulated on social media.

That cuts the 23-year-old out of the Kiwis’ test programme for the rest of this year but he’s available for round one of the 2020 NRL season. What else did we expect? Although the circumstances are different, it has echoes of numerous incidents in the 1990s and 2000s, when New Zealand players (Ruben Wiki, Quentin Pongia, Nigel Vagana et al) were rubbed out by the judiciary, often in highly arguable cases, on the eve of test matches.

As well as being the game’s governing body, the NRL also runs the Kangaroos, who will be an obvious beneficiary of the prop’s absence, given fellow Kiwis bookend Jesse Bromwich is also ruled out (injury).

Even the media release had a touch of Monty Python about it, saying the punishment was imposed “in conjunction with the Melbourne Storm”.

It’s easy to imagine the club and the NRL agreed on a scenario showing they were taking a stance, but not affecting the all-powerful Victorian club.

If the NRL had decided this was a serious incident, they needed to act with a five or six-game ban, which encompassed some of the club season.

Otherwise, Asofa-Solomona should have been free to play at least one of the upcoming tests.

And there was certainly some compelling evidence that AsofaSolomona was acting in self defence, as well protecting his teammate Suliasi Vunivalu, who had allegedly been king-hit by a patron inside La Favela bar.