Greg Alexander fumes over 'ludicrous' Melbourne Storm claim
Greg Alexander has hit back at the claim he used a premeditated verbal attack on the Storm to spice up the showdown between Penrith and Melbourne on Thursday.
The Panthers legend hit out at Broncos player Patrick Carrigan after his controversial hip-drop tackle on the Tigers' Jackson Hastings two weeks ago.
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The tackle has been a talking point after Carrigan only received four weeks, despite Hastings breaking his leg and being ruled out for the remainder of the season.
Alexander dragged Melbourne into the controversy and claimed the Storm had introduced wrestling into the NRL, which has seen different techniques used against players to stop momentum.
However, this didn't sit well with Storm legend Cameron Smith after he labelled the comments "really unfair".
"Brandy is a great analyst of the game and one of the greatest players of our game," Smith said on SEN Radio.
"I just don't know how he came up with that comment.
"To single out one club and to say that they introduced that tackle into our sport, that's over the top."
On NRL 360, journalist Brent Read suggested Alexander may have used the timing of the comments to add extra spice to this week's clash.
“I don’t think the club’s gone to Brandy and said, ‘Hey Brandy, how about you go on radio this week and give it to Melbourne’,” Read said.
“But I’m sure there’s a little something in him in the argument that it’s a good time to bring it up, to raise it and point the finger at Melbourne.”
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However, the NRL great completely dismissed the accusations he was trying to spice things up for the showdown.
“It’s ludicrous to think there was any planning in the comments I made,” Alexander said on SEN Breakfast.
“We made the comments based on our listeners and what they were saying.
“It was about the Patrick Carrigan hip drop and the no-charge to Nelson Asofa-Solomona.
“That’s how the story came about. I just mentioned a couple of things thinking it wasn’t any great revelation. Cam Smith had his say, I had my say."
The Panthers legend also doubled down on his comments and claimed he thought it was 'general consensus' that the Storm had introduced wrestling into the NRL.
Melbourne Storm boss Tripp lashed out at Alexander and accused him of having a 'bias' against Melbourne.
However, Alexander also hit back at those comments and suggested he didn't even know his former club was playing the Storm this Thursday.
He also labelled any notion of 'bias' against the Storm as nonsense.
“Another claim was that I’ve been singling out and campaigning against the Melbourne Storm for years," Alexander added.
“That’s just garbage, it’s just fanciful and it’s in the fairytale realm that I speak about sometimes, that’s just made up.”
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