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Opinion
The way David Klemmer and Tommy Talau responded when Jackson Hastings tried to apologise for a high tackle was an embarrassment to the Wests Tigers and the game.
Hastings’ return to Leichhardt Oval was soured by an incident after full-time when he was involved in a scuffle with Talau and Klemmer after conducing a post-game TV interview.
He was instrumental in Newcastle’s 12-10 win over the Tigers even after they lost Kalyn Ponga in the opening set to concussion, Jayden Brailey due to a failed HIA, Tyson Frizell to an ankle injury and Jacob Saifiti when he was sent off after an ugly swinging arm on Jake Simpkin’s chin 15 minutes from full-time.
Hastings left on bad terms with the Tigers – in fact, he has never left an NRL club in happy circumstances.
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The son of former Roosters great Kevin Hastings left the Bondi-based club after reportedly falling out with senior players.
Manly then threw a metaphorical bone to Hastings to resurrect his career. After playing 13 games in two seasons, he was again left on the outer after getting into an altercation with club captain Daly Cherry-Evans at a Gladstone pub.
Even though Hastings still holds the same line that he loves the Tigers and is appreciative of the club giving him the opportunity, the Tigers still showed him the door.
This is the same guy who when injured wanted to travel with the team to the Gold Coast, however he was told he wasn’t welcome despite telling the club he would pay for his own flight.
Prior to half-time on Sunday, Talau looked certain to score before Hastings came across and clipped the young centre across the nose. An innocent mistake.
However, this was not seen as such by Talau who fair dinkum needs to grow up. It’s rugby league. He needs to take this on the chin figuratively and literally.
Talau would have been disappointed as to how it all played out but when a bloke comes up to apologise for an innocent mistake you shake the man’s hand, not try and start a scuffle with a former teammate.
Is this the behavior becoming of an elite rugby league footballer? I don’t believe so. Is this something our junior rugby league players should replicate? Definitely not.
As for Klemmer then getting involved with a few choice words, he should be better than that.
Klemmer is one of the leaders of that club and that behaviour shows a lack of leadership at the joint venture and that the mentality of the team is poor when things don’t go their way.
“I don’t know the bloke,” Klemmer told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s just one of those things, I was looking out for my mate and my mate didn’t want to go out there and talk.
“So I just intervened and cut it out. It was nothing that bad.”
When asked if he thought the incident required him to step in or was confrontation enough, Klemmer was adamant he was in the right. “The security guard stepped in. I just went over,” the prop said. “It was pretty harmless. It might have looked a different way, but there was nothing in it.”
David Klemmer. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Tim Sheens’ blatant inability to not deal with such behavior and put a line in the sand instead putting his head in the sand in the post-match press conference shows further lack of leadership.
Tigers chairman Lee Hagipantelis had an opportunity to address the situation yet on Monday he spoke to the NewsCorp papers about potentially ‘wooing up’ on expanding to a 20-team competition in the future.
Remembering the fact that when Hastings did his ankle at the end of last season ruling him out for the remainder as a result of a hip drop tackle by Brisbane lock Patrick Carrigan he went on Fox League and said “it was an accident he didn’t mean it, my ankle got caught, he landed on it, it broke so be it”.
Maybe the Tigers shouldn’t have let this guy go after all because Hastings completely outplayed his opposite number, Luke Brooks.
Maybe, just maybe they should have put all their energy into the game of football rather than a stink after the game.
It’s an embarrassment for the game and an embarrassment for the club.
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