The Sydney Roosters have been slugged with a $40,000 breach notice from the NRL as part of the ugly fall out from Friday night’s grudge match against South Sydney.
Coach Trent Robinson has been hit with a $20,000 fine for his post-match blow up at the bunker’s decision not to send off Latrell Mitchell, who fractured Joey Manu’s eye socket with a reckless tackle.
The NRL claims Robinson’s comments contravened rules of public comment that club officials are bound by.
In the breach notice the NRL alleges Robinson claimed match officials had a bias against the Roosters and exposed individual match officials to personal ridicule.
Robinson took aim at bunker official Henry Perenara, calling the whole situation a ‘farce’ and ‘laughable’ because of the delay to address Manu’s injury.
It’s Robinson’s second breach notice from the NRL this year after he was handed a $10,000 suspended fine for similar comments match at a post-match press conference in May following a loss to Parramatta.
Adding to the whopping total, another $10,000 fine has been handed down to Roosters officials who allegedly abused referees from the sideline in Friday nights’ dramatic 54-12 loss to the Rabbitohs.
The NRL also threatened to revoke sideline access for any repeat offence.
An additional $10,000 fine will also be activated if the club is found to have breached NRL rules of public comment.
“Sport can be highly emotional and sometimes people will debate decisions made on the field and we expect all clubs to deal with on-field matters respectfully,” said NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo.
“We can analyse and debate decisions, but such commentary should not be personalised and disrespectful.
“In our view there was a lack of professionalism shown by the club and its officials across Friday night.
“We’re an elite competition and we should set the standard for how to deal with adversity.”
On Sunday night vision emerged of ex-Roosters star Mitchell in a confrontation with former teammates on the sideline as he walked off the field after being sin-binned.
Although publicly available vision does not show who he was arguing with, reports from the ground suggest it was sidelined players Angus Crichton, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Victor Radley.
Waerea-Hargreaves is also under investigation by the NRL’s integrity unit for an alleged incident with a Nine Network cameraman.
It’s alleged the Roosters prop swiped at the camera he was holding to protect Manu from being filmed as he walked up the tunnel.
It’s unknown if there is any footage of the alleged incident between Waerea-Hargreaves and the cameraman, and the NRL is yet to make a determination.
The Roosters now have five days to respond to the breach notice.
The proposed fines are the first step taken by the NRL in cleaning up the messy fallout of the clash.
Over the weekend head of football Graham Annesley was forced to admit NRL officials were wrong not to send Mitchell off for the tackle on Manu, for which the Souths superstar will now serve a six-week suspension.
Manu underwent facial reconstruction surgery in a Brisbane hospital on Saturday and despite suffering injuries similar to those seen in a car accident, was coping OK according to teammates.
AAP
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