Jarome Luai has put Jahrome Hughes’ referee push down to the “high testosterone and emotion” of the NRL, saying neither the banned Melbourne half nor any other player would ever mean to hurt a match official.
Hughes pushed Chris Butler after the referee found himself between the halfback and Warriors centre Rocco Berry as the Storm defended their line during Saturday night’s game.
The Storm had been tempted to fight the contrary conduct charge, but in a strongly worded statement on Monday confirmed they had decided against risking a longer ban at the judiciary.
Hughes will serve his one-game suspension when the Storm face Newcastle on Sunday.
Penrith five-eighth Luai was the most recent player before Hughes to face sanction for contacting a match official after he pushed touch judge Chris Sutton while celebrating a try against Brisbane in 2023.
Jarome Luai. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)
Hughes’ incident prompted pundits to make comparisons to Luai’s own push, for which the star Panther received only a $1800 fine.
“It brought back memories,” Luai said with a laugh when asked about Hughes’ push.
Luai had only seen still photographs of the push and not video of the whole incident.
But he said there would not have been any malice on the part of Hughes, with whom he has fought regular battles on the edges in games between Penrith and Melbourne.
“It’s kind of hard, we’re just players trying to win games and stop tries and things like that,” Luai said.
“I’m not too sure if it’s the positioning of the ref or something like that, where they should or shouldn’t stand. It’s a bit of a tough one. Just being a competitor and being a player, he was probably trying to stop a try.
“For any player, we’re competitors and we’re in a game with high testosterone, emotions are everywhere and things like that. Most of us are good guys off the field. It’s not personal or anything like that.”
Luai’s Panthers are preparing for Thursday’s grand final rematch with Brisbane, who will be without injured halfback Adam Reynolds and possibly star prop forward Payne Haas as well. Luai was hopeful Penrith’s forward pack leader, James Fisher-Harris, would be free for the game after going down with a shoulder injury against Parramatta last Friday.
“He said he is (a chance to play), I’m not too sure where the coaches are on that and the extent of his injury,” Luai said.
(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
The fallout from Josh Mansour’s explosive interview about his departure from South Sydney has taken an unexpected twist with the former Bunny calling out commentator Andrew Voss and pundit Greg Alexander following their comments on SEN Radio.
Vossy and Brandy were responding to Monday’s episode, in which Mansour described his treatment by Souths coach Jason Demetriou as ‘f***ing bulls**t’ amid a long list of complaints following his final season at the club in 2022.
“Why do people go on podcasts and feel the need to tell all? It’s a non-story,” said Alexander.
“It’s a pile on towards Jason Demetriou,” added Voss.
Mansour took to social media to fire back at the radio pair, defending his comments and insisting that he had not questioned Demetriou’s coaching ability.
“What pile on?” he wrote.
“I was simply asked a question and I answered it from my personal experience. I never once critiqued his coaching ability. Absolute hypocrisy coming from these two who apparently have never criticised a player or coach.”
The NRL has dropped referee Ziggy Przeklasa-Adamski for round three after Canterbury were denied a try on the basis the official had obstructed Cronulla’s five-eighth Braydon Trindall.
Przeklasa-Adamski has not been listed as referee for any of the NRL’s eight matches this weekend, but will serve as touch judge when Wests Tigers host Cronulla at Leichhardt Oval.
He will be promoted to referee if Chris Butler becomes unavailable for Saturday night’s game.
Bulldogs second-rower Viliame Kikau looked to have opened the scoring at Shark Park on Friday night when he grabbed an offload from Matt Burton and crashed over the line.
But Przeklasa-Adamski referred the try to the bunker to check whether he had impeded Trindall as he tried to make a tackle.
Replays showed Trindall had collided with Przeklasa-Adamski as he rushed towards Kikau.
The bunker ruled a mutual infringement, a scenario when something out of either side’s control affects play irregularly, and the game reverted to the previous play-the-ball.
The try was disallowed, but the NRL’s rules cast doubt as to whether the incident was actually a mutual infringement.
“The referee is the sole judge of what constitutes a mutual infringement and whether or not play has been irregularly affected,” the rulebook says.
“Contact between a defender and referee may not constitute a mutual infringement.”
The NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley said on Monday he disagreed with the match officials’ findings.
“I don’t believe this try should have been overturned. The referee has to be somewhere on the field. He can’t just disappear,” he said.
Annesley argued Trindall’s decision to run to one side of the referee and then cut back in-field to tackle Kikau was a defensive decision and Przeklasa-Adamski was not to blame for the collision.
“If we allow that try to be disallowed on that basis, we’ll have players making contact with the referees in multiple instances where they’ll be claiming they’ve been disadvantaged and ask for tries to be overturned,” he said.
The decision ultimately did not affect the outcome of the game as Cronulla ran out 25-6 winners.
(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Latrell Mitchell raised eyebrows with an expletive-laden radio cross on Thursday night, saying “f***” four times live on Triple M as he reflected on the Rabbitohs’ 28-18 loss to Brisbane.
The incident prompted NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo to publicly remind players to “be respectful” with their language during interviews.
Mitchell has not been sanctioned over the episode but the high-profile fullback’s choice of words nevertheless generated public scrutiny.
Mitchell took to social media on Monday to address the backlash, writing on his Instagram story: “There was no intent. No malice. Let’s move on.”
Rabbitohs skipper Cameron Murray shrugged the incident off as the team looked ahead to Friday’s grudge match against the Sydney Roosters.
“I didn’t see too much wrong with it,” he said.
“I know he’s a passionate man and I know all he wants to do is win. They’re two pretty good attributes that I think Latrell has and things that I’ll always back.
“Trell is Trell and I think what we do at this club really well is empower people to be themselves. I know if he had his time again, he’d probably be a little bit more selective about the words he chose.”
with AAP
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