Newcastle’s CEO made a major gaffe at the club’s presentation night, attempting a ribald joke that went down horrendously in the room.
Speaking to an assembled group of club sponsors, officials and players from both the NRL and NRLW teams, Knights boss Philip Gardner ended his speech with an attempt at humour cribbed from former British prime minister Winston Churchill.
“A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep you interested,” he is reported to have said by Newscorp.
The gag, which was live streamed, was not well received in the room – not least because Gardner had spent time before explaining how much he wanted the NRLW team to be the best in the world.
The Knights website quickly pulled the stream and has subsequently removed any trace of it from the club’s website.
Shane Flanagan is already making moves as the new man at St George Illawarra – with the incoming coach announcing that the club will split training between Wollongong and Sydney as of next season, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The Dragons have trained exclusively at their Illawarra base for several years, but Flanagan, himself a St George junior as a player, is to return the club to Kogarah for at least one session a week in 2024.
“Let’s get back to Kogarah,” he told the Tele. “The club is St George Illawarra. I’m treating it like that through all facets of the club.”
The playing group is split between Sydney and Wollongong in terms of living arrangements, though the majority are on the South Coast.
It is thought that it could be advantageous in recruitment if players were not forced to relocate to the Gong in order to play for the Dragons.
Flanagan is also set to make a major move on the field, with centre Zac Lomax to be given time at fullback.
The Herald is reporting that Lomax will go head-to-head with current number 1 Tyrell Sloan for the jumper, with 2022’s custodian, Cody Ramsey, still sidelined for medical reasons.
“He’s definitely going to get some reps there in the off-season,” said the coach. “It’s not a bad thing for him to be able to play both sides of the field, either way. He’s done it at left centre and right centre.
“As a fullback, there’s a lot of defensive qualities you need to have and he’s definitely big and strong enough and fit enough; he can handle the workload.
“It’s just the subtleties of the fullback play, [playing] out the back, the three-on-twos and those sorts of things that we will work on with him during the off-season.”
Robbo
Roar Rookie
Probably had to promise it to quell talk of him wanting to leave
Tufanooo
Roar Rookie
It's one session a week. It's hardly an imposition on the players. It's helpful for the juniors in the Kogarah area to get to spend a bit of time with the players mid-week as well.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
Want to drop the kids off at school? Sorry, you're training at the other venue today.
Knights4Ever
Roar Rookie
Last season after our NRLW team won the Grand Final we had a celebration at Town Hall near Civic Park Newcastle. Philip Gardner was front and centre (What's new) Praising our girls, which was fantastic then ended his speech by something along the lines " Next Season Don't Worry the Nrl team will be successful as well. I have been a Newcastle Knights member for 24 years and absolutely over the moon we have such a fantastic end to the season ,a home final on Sunday is a dream come true, but at that exact moment I wish I'd had an egg or two to belt at old mate....
Greg
Roar Pro
Powerful runner, probably just needs to improve his tackle efficiency. 23 was his first year fulltime in league and first year against men so i think it will improve naturally. Defence didnt look like an obvious but statistically it appears to be.
Dutski
Roar Guru
Cheers. He looks pretty handy from the highlights I could find.
RayinSydney
Roar Rookie
Great headline, Lomax to get Full back, crack...then sack?
mushi
Roar Guru
That’s “I’ve decided to move on to pursue a new challenge/focus on family” material. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of acceptability of the comment you know that was going to be a lightning rod. The ceo is supposed to be the best strategic thinker in the organisation, not Jarome Luai
mushi
Roar Guru
It's really odd, also doesn't it mean double the investment in training facilities? The recruitment angle doesn't make sense if it's split. Now you're just saying it doesn't matter where you live it's going to average an hour of travel per day of training. Come to the dragons where more than 5% of your waking life will be a commute on training days.
Greg
Roar Pro
Savelio Tamale
Dutski
Roar Guru
Interested to see how Lomax goes at fullback. He’s got all the attributes. Mind you that leaves the Dragons a centre down. Anyone on the horizon there’s?
Succhi
Roar Rookie
That’s a fair bit of mid week travel for players, coaching staff, etc - I think this is an obvious issue with merged clubs, trying to please everybody.
Arnab Bhattacharya
Roar Guru
What a clown move from the CEO. The Knights NRLW side would be fuming that their own CEO would be saying something like this publicly when they arguably cop enough mysoginistic comments from trolls every week.