Warriors’ poor discipline angers George
Warriors chief executive Cameron George has expressed disappointment in his players’ on-field behaviour during the club’s 44-0 defeat to the Gold Coast Titans on Sunday.
Chaotic scenes broke out in the second half, when ill discipline saw three Warriors — Jazz Tevaga, Matt Lodge and Kane Evans — sin-binned within a minute of each other.
George believed the outbursts were a result of emotions spilling over but refused to make any excuses for the players.
“A number of moving parts came together for a bad result,” he said. “[But] it’s not as a club how we wish to display ourselves.
“We, as a footy club, will continue to conduct ourselves in the best possible light. We have worked really hard on that and to have moments where we’ve let ourselves down in that regard, there’s no excuse for it.”
George said all three players showed immediate remorse after the game but that it wouldn’t make a difference to how the club addressed the situation this week.
“That’s irrelevant. They have a responsibility and obligation to demonstrate very good conduct and we failed in that space,” George said.
“We don’t accept it, and regardless of their remorseful feelings postgame, we will make sure it doesn’t happen again, so we’ll address it this week internally.”
It’s not the first time Lodge and Evans have found themselves in hot water with the club.
Lodge has already been suspended twice as a Warrior, while Evans was recently banned for attempting to punch Cronulla centre Will Chambers.
“It’s pretty black and white with me, in terms of how we move forward with this,” George said. “We’ll have a chat with Matt and other players about their records, about what happened [on Sunday] and we’ll make sure we do everything we can to tidy that up because they’re here to do a job and we expect them to get that job done, not spend more time on the sidelines than they do on the field.
“You play within the spirit of the game, that’s expected of everyone across the whole NRL . . . play hard, play with your emotion, play competitively and get a win, but when that spills over, we want to make sure the appropriate support, education and action is taken from the club, if it’s costing us our reputation.”
Five Warriors players were hit with a number of charges by the NRL judiciary following Sunday’s heavy loss.
Meanwhile, George said they were working on plans for next season as players prepare to go on leave.
“At the moment, the focus is trying to get people home, and at the same time, confirming what we can do next year,” he said.
“We’ll make a decision in the best interest of this club, to win footy games next year.”