From the Daily Telegraph,
Wayne Bennett is stubborn and hates being proven wrong. But the supercoach is set to swallow his pride and succumb to public pressure come May 28. PLUS the Roosters-Rabbitohs rivalry going soft.
SAM SITS IN
RETIRED Rabbitohs superstar and Fox Sports commentator Sam Burgess is so highly regarded by NRL executives that he has been invited to sit in on Project Apollo meetings at Moore Park headquarters. Alongside RLPA boss Clint Newton, Burgess has offered useful advice about playerrelated issues in the countdown to the resumption of play on May 28.
SORRY, WAYNE
Wayne Bennett is stubborn and hates being proven wrong.
Yet we’re told the old supercoach is about to abandon the failed experiment of playing Latrell Mitchell at fullback at the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Sources at Redfern are telling us Latrell will return to the centres when the Rabbitohs resume their premiership campaign, hopefully on May 28 against his old club the Sydney Roosters.
Latrell struggled in the first two rounds with lack of fitness to cover the extra ground that is required of fullbacks in attack and defence.
Bennett, we are told, has not given up on Latrell wearing the No.1 jersey later in the year but wants him to get more match fitness.
This story will be denied. Just like Bennett did when we broke the news in this column of Souths signing James Roberts and Latrell last year.
Rest assured it will happen. It will be Latrell in the centres and Alex Johnston at fullback.
SNAPPING UP THE TALENT
BRAITH Anasta has signed up his first talent as a rugby league player manager.
Lachlan Ilias, 19, is a former Australian Schoolboys rugby union star and a backline utility at South Sydney. He’s also played in Australia’s Youth Sevens team.
The youngster has played league for NSW under-16s as well and Anasta is in talks with the Rabbitohs about Ilias’s future at Redfern.
There is also talk of Melbourne Storm winger Josh Addo-Carr being keen to join Anasta’s stable.
Addo-Carr had a falling out with his agent Gavin Orr before Orr was banned for two years by the NRL integrity unit.
SINNERS
One of the great things about rugby league is the camaraderie and mateship that team sport builds. There are, however, exceptions like the fact we love the Roosters and Rabbitohs rivalry and a century of hate. That’s why it looked so ordinary when Trent Robinson and Wayne Bennett turned up together at NRL headquarters during the week for a Project Apollo meeting. Robbo even drove the old bloke to Moore Park. Hopefully hostilities will resume in the build-up to their next game.
SINNER II
There have been some outrageously ridiculous suggestions about potential CEO replacements for Todd Greenberg. The silliest was Russell Crowe pushing his mate Shane Richardson, who famously spent 12 months at the NRL in 2015 and achieved nothing. Also, this idea about Phil Gould … the last thing the NRL needs is one of Gus’s five-year plans.
SPOTTED
South Sydney Rabbitohs skipper Adam Reynolds and Maroons Origin star Dane Gagai getting out of the house for a game of golf at Eastlake.
SPOTTED
Braith Anasta and Sam Burgess playing at The Coast golf club. Burgess got the chocolates, too. He has reduced his handicap from 12 to 8 since retiring and spending more time on his swing.
SAINT
The appointment of commercial boss Andrew Abdo as a caretaker chief executive of the NRL. This guy is a bright, creative and big-picture thinker who deserves an opportunity under Peter V’landys.
SPOTTED
Referees boss Bernard Sutton has had to get a job at Woolworths at Seven Hills while the NRL competition has been in lockdown. He works from 7pm to midnight unloading trucks. Sutton has a big family to look after – his wife and four children aged 9, 7, 4 and 1.
“It’s been a good dose of reality to see how other people work on a day-to-day basis,” he said, “And it’s been good working around people who love their footy.”
SPOTTED
Racing NSW and rugby league boss Peter V’landys leaving Woolworths in Pitt Street with a box of breakfast cereal on Tuesday.
SPOTTED
Former NRL and soccer boss David Gallop reaching out to Todd Greenberg via a friendly text message on Monday, the day he was sacked as NRL chief executive.
SPOTTED
Wallaby skipper and fitness fanatic Michael Hooper training on his own at Manly Oval on Thursday morning despite the disappointment of his salary dropping from $1.2 million to less than $500,000.
SPOTTED
Players Union boss Clint Newton training at Avoca Beach on the Central Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
SHOOSH
Who was the high-flying NRL official doing his resume last week to look for a new job amid fears he would become a casualty of cost-cutting at head office.
BELLYACHE’S NAS SUPPORT
Craig Bellamy has thrown his support behind towering forward Nelson Asofa-Solomona wanting to combine footy with boxing.
“I’ve got no issue with it at all as long as it doesn’t interfere with his football,” Bellamy said. “He did boxing as a kid, he likes it, and I think it’s actually a good thing for him. He’s pretty handy at it, too, which helps.”
We wrote in this column late last year that promoter Matt Rose would offer Asofa-Solomona an opportunity in the ring after video footage went viral of him fighting like a thrashing machine in a brawl outside a Bali nightclub.
The plan is for the Storm giant to take on former Manly and Eels prop Darcy Lussick, who spectacularly knocked out Justin Hodges in 39 seconds in his professional debut last December.
