Three Wallabies dropped over drinking session
Superstar winger Marika Koroibete is among three Wallabies players scrubbed out of Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup series opener with the All Blacks after leaving teammates filthy over a late-night drinking session.
Koroibete and strike forwards Isi Naisarani and Pone Fa’amausili have been ruled unavailable for selection after breaching team protocol by continuing to consume alcohol more than two hours after curfew following a bonding session in Auckland last Saturday.
Coach Dave Rennie said while “there were no issues around behaviour, damage or complaints or anything,” the trio had let the entire squad down as the Wallabies strive to break a 35-year Eden Park hoodoo.
“We’ve got a big squad here – 42 players. Thirty-nine understood the importance of getting together and getting connected and having a quiet beer and three guys lacked the discipline beyond that,” Rennie said on Wednesday.
“We’ve stated the importance of our preparation for the All Blacks. We all ne ed to be at our very best to try and force the All Blacks to be below their best.
“This obviously didn’t fit with their mindset so (we’re) incredibly disappointed and, to be honest, there’s a big chunk of that group who are pretty angry.”
Rennie said Koroibete, Naisarani and Fa’amausili had taken leftover alcohol from the team room.
“It’s not so much (about being) intoxicated. It was the fact that they continued drinking well beyond the time that was listed,” he said.
“Basically, we’d finished downstairs and the expectation was to call it a night. These three boys went upstairs and carried on (drinking).
“It was certainly more than two hours past (curfew).”
Rennie said a “senior player” first alerted team manager Phil Thomson to the breach.
But the coach made it clear that senior management made the decision to stand the trio down, saying it wasn’t the leadership group’s call to determine the punishment for an offence “of this scale”.
Asked why it took than three days to publicise t he incident, Rennie said it was better to come clean before Thursday’s team announcement than have pundits speculating about why players like Koroibete were missing.
“You sweep this sort of thing under the carpet and it bites you on the backside later on,” he said.
“It’s a frustration for me personally because we’ve wasted a lot of time, obviously, dealing with the players.
“But, look, the squad is really resilient so we made it really, really clear when we made this announcement to the group on Monday.
“Everyone knew the consequences, everyone was supportive of that and we’ve got on and we’re focusing on what we need to do against the All Blacks.
“So it won’t have a detrimental effect on performance. If anything, it will galvanise us.”
There was no consideration to sending the offenders back to Australia, with all three to be available for game two and three of the series after sheepishly apologising to the rest of the squad.
“Obviously thei r heads were down. They know they let the boys down,” Rennie said.
“Their response is they’ve got to earn the trust and the respect of those boys again and that’s going to be what they do rather than what they say.”
RA boss Andy Marinos said: “Rugby Australia supports the action taken by the team, and the internal standards they have set for each other.
“As an organisation, we expect the highest standards at all times. While we also acknowledge that this is a minor incident, I applaud Dave and the team for taking such an open and transparent approach.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Wasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
3 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
3 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
3 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
30 Go to comments