Hooper: 'You take your friends warts and all, and your teammates'
Wallabies superstar Israel Folau has two days to respond or face the sack after being served with a breach notice by Rugby Australia over his controversial social media posts.
RA CEO Raelene Castle said the RA integrity unit had deemed Folau had committed a “high level” breach of the players’ code of conduct which warranted termination of his contract.
“Israel has 48 hours to accept the sanction or have the matter sent to acode of conduct hearing,’ Castle said.
Folau remains stood down by RA over his religiously-motivated posts last week proclaiming hell awaits “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters”.
Asked if Folau was being punished for his religious beliefs, Castle said “this is not a religious discussion, this is a discussion around the employee-employer relationship.”
Castle said Folau had been unapologetic about the posts and his stance when she met with him last Friday.
“That left us with no option but to move forward to the position that we’ve taken,” Castle said.
He had been warned, formally and repeatedly about social media expectations after he made similar posts about a year ago.
“It was made clear to Israel in writing and verbally when I met with him last year that any social media posts or commentary that in anyway were disrespectful to people because of their sexuality would result in disciplinary action,” Castle said.
“Despite this Israel has chosen to ignore this warning.”
Castle said there had been no additional clauses about social media use inserted in Folau’s latest contract.
“It’s very disappointing from my perspective because I had a very direct and specific conversation with himabout the expectations that I had,” Castle said.
“He accepted that conversation, he said that he understood that conversation, he shook my hand at the end of that and said he was very clear, and yet he has gone off and done this.”
Earlier on Monday,Wallabies coach Michael Cheika told reporters that Folau’s “disrespectful” comments would make it impossible to pick him in the national team, which is preparing for this year’s World Cup in Japan.
“Getting out in that disrespectful manner publicly is not what our team’s about,” Cheika said on Monday. “When you play in the gold jersey, we represent everyone in Australia – everyone. Everyone that’s out there supporting us. We don’t pick and choose.”
Asked if he would be comfortable taking the field again alongside Folau, Wallabies and NSW Waratahs captain flanker Hooper said: “In this current state and being here and talking about this as a rugby player, it makes it hard, it makes it difficult.
“You take your friends warts and all, and your teammates,” Hooper added.
Cheika said he didn’t think the issue would rear its head again after the controversy of last year’s tweets and Rugby Australia’s subsequent talks with Folau.
He had tried unsuccessfully to contact him for an explanation.
“We had a discussion at the end of the last time and made it pretty clear about his right to believe and our support in that if that’s what he wants,” he said.
“I felt that I needed to talk to him about why, and I haven’t had that chance as yet. I’m sure I will in the future at some stage when it settles down for him a little bit.
“I made the calls and left the messages. There’s no beef.”
Folau told reporters after attending his church on Sunday that he stood by his posts and wasprepared to walk away from the game for the sake of his faith.
Waratahs CEO Andrew Hore said the his players, one of who is Folau’s brother John, had been briefed on Monday.
AAP
Comments on RugbyPass
I am really looking forward to Leigh Halfpenny playing his first Super rugby game for the Crusaders Playing a long side his former Welsh and Scarlets team mate Johnny McNicoll.Johnny has been playing great, back in a Crusaders jersey.The attack has strengthened big time. Also looking forward to David Havili at 10. David is a class act, it also allows Dallas McLeod to remain at 12. A good thing.
1 Go to commentsIf he had stopped insisting on playing in the backrow, instead of wing, where everyone told him he should, he would have been a Bok years ago….
11 Go to comments‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
19 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
16 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
16 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
84 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
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