Penny finally drops: Terepo vows not to blow his final chance
Adrian ProszenkoMarch 30, 2019
Peni Terepo has expressed gratitude to Parramatta for not sacking him over his latest off-field indiscretion and vowed to repay the faith shown by handling himself better in the NRL spotlight.
Terepo was fined $25,000 and suspended for two games over his drunken behaviour on a flight from Tonga to New Zealand. The Eels gave serious consideration to ripping up his contract following allegations Terepo refused to hand over alcohol he had brought onto the international trip and had been a nuisance to flight staff.
Grateful: Peni Terepo has thanked Parramatta for sticking by him despite off-field dramas.CREDIT:CRAIG GOLDING
Of equal concern was the fact he didn’t report the incident to Parramatta officials, who were only made aware once it appeared in the media. He also failed to disclose a careless driving conviction in New Zealand ahead of the 2017 campaign. Terepo was involved in a crash that saw him thrown through the car's windscreen and was charged for refusing to provide a blood-alcohol test, ultimately leading to a seven-month driving ban.
However, the Eels gave Terepo one final chance and even rushed him straight back into the team for Friday night’s loss to the Roosters. Speaking afterwards, the Parramatta prop said he had learned his lesson.
“I’m grateful the club gave me another chance and still had faith in me to get the job done,” Terepo said. “I can’t thank them enough.
“To be honest, I wasn’t as worried at first because I thought it was a real small issue. But the way it was blown out, I started to get real worried.”
Terepo said he had learned a valuable lesson about life in the spotlight.
“Just to be more mindful now as a footy player,” he said.
“I don’t see myself as that superstar footy player. I just see myself as an ordinary guy. Now that NRL players have the spotlight on them you have to be more mindful now.
“That’s something I probably didn’t understand. As NRL players now we need to be more mindful because one little thing can be trouble for you.”
Asked if he feared his career could be over, Terepo said: “I always take things as my last chance. I don’t take it for granted. I always have to be at my best on the field or off the field, I just got caught off guard there.”
The Eels led the Roosters until the 62nd minute, suggesting the gap between last year’s premiers and wooden spooners had been bridged. Rather than be content to push the benchmark team, Parramatta stars Mitchell Moses and Blake Ferguson said they were “filthy” to have let them off the hook.
“We were rubbish, I thought,” Moses said.
“Every time we scored points we let them off the hook too easy, we couldn’t complete our next set. It really hurt us and stopped our momentum straight away.
“I felt we did that last week but coming up against the Roosters, the best team in the comp, they make you pay.
“We’re filthy with ourselves. It was simple errors – errors in contact, attention to detail stuff. We need to fix that up. If we complete at 80 per cent we’re right in that game up to the 80th minute. It’s a big learning curve for us and we’ll take a lot of lessons out of it. We need to be better next week against the Sharks.”
Feguson, playing against his former club, echoed those sentiments.
“I was a little bit filthy that we lost. Obviously we were in that game for 60 minutes,” Ferguson said.
“A few simple errors let them back in there.
“To be honest we just have the belief [we can beat anyone] in our squad. It’s just key moments there [we didn’t live up to] what’s expected in our culture. We’ll go back and look at the tape and be better.”
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/pe...to-blow-his-final-chance-20190330-p5196r.html
