Picture early last season after Covid and we went on our horror run. At Fox its the same old "Dragons are in crisis" theme, Hooper playing the usual stick-poking journo to Dragons fans trying to get us all angry (Fox 101), but all of the usual suspects playing their part through the week.
So we are playing the Warriors up on the Central Coast - and we are having a mare of a game. Ben Hunt starts hobbling...injuring a leg but he is playing on. The Sideline reporters are doing the usual of trying to get an update on what the issue is... His movement gets progressively worse and he's in obvious pain whenever he kicks the ball.. He's basically playing on one leg.
Dragons have had a shocking game and so the Fox Machine kicks into Dragons Crisis mode again. They go back to the studio but now they have a lamb at the slaughter - Ben Hunt. So the reports come through from the Dragons to the sideline reporters that he's suffered some sort of cork, but he's had an issue with a boil previously, they are still trying to work out exactly the issue....
The panel start focussing on Hunt - and when they start talking about the news of Hunt's injury, playing on with a leg injury... Yvonne Sampson says, and I quote
"I don't quite believe that".
Basically she is saying he's faking it.
She's attacking his integrity.
In the day and age where Mental Health is so important, and people those at Fox are banging on about mental health's importance etc - to me it's all a PR facade. Yvonne Sampson out-and-out publically attacks the integrity of Ben Hunt with no foundation or consideration whatsoever. It was public knowledge that Hunt had had some struggles that season off the field. But the guy is still turning up and doing his best - even if that best isn't what the team really needs at the time. The guy get's injured yet Yvonne Sampson clicks into the Fox101 crisis mode and blatantly looks to fan flames of controversy. I'll never forget it and will never forgive her for it.
I actually had recorded it on my phone and wanted to post on the forums but didn't know how to upload a video at the time.
To me the person who's integrity is in question wasn't the guy who's playing on injured in a team that's struggling on the field, it's the host of a panel back on a comfortable studio who publically accused that player of faking his injury without any basis whatsoever - for the betterment of "controversy"....
To me - she's a fraud. "I don't quite believe her".. Yvonne Sampson is a fraud. And for that reason - I'll never watch NRL360 again.
