Michael Clarke hits out after Josh Addo-Carr saga sparks 'absurd' NRL fallout
Josh Addo-Carr's controversial Koori Knockout saga has thrust the issue into the spotlight.
Michael Clarke has clashed heads with veteran rugby league journalist Dean 'Bulldog' Ritchie, as debate swirls around whether NRL clubs should be able to ban players from participating in non-sanctioned events. The issue has come to a head in recent weeks after Canterbury Bulldogs star Josh Add-Carr was involved in a post-match punch-up after playing in the recent Koori Knockout tournament.
Addo-Carr was involved in a wild brawl while playing for the Sydney All Blacks in the tournament that takes place every year across the October long weekend, seeing bush and park footy players line up against some of the stars of the NRL. The brawl saw him cop a $5000 fine and two-game ban that ruled him out of Kangaroos selection for the Pacific Championships Tests against Samoa and New Zealand.
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The Canterbury flyer also claimed he was knocked out early in the game and played on for the rest of the match, suggesting the incident contributed to his role in the ugly post-game scenes. Writing for the Daily Telegraph, Ritchie said it was "absurd" that NRL stars risk themselves in "unsanctioned" events like the Koori Knockout and boxing bouts, insisting clubs should be able to stop their players from doing so.
“Elite players contesting rival sports and unsanctioned tournaments during the off-season has to end. It’s absurd,” Ritchie wrote. He suggested that NRL stars had been “mollycoddled” for too long and weren't used to being told "no", before suggesting club powerbrokers should have the final say on whether their players are allowed to compete in competitions outside the NRL.
Debating the prickly issue on Monday's Big Sports Breakfast program, Clarke hit back at Ritchie's assertions and claimed it was no different from Australian cricketers going back to play club cricket with their local teams. The former Aussie cricket captain also said Indigenous players such as Addo-Carr should be encouraged to take part in tournaments of significance to their communities, not discouraged from doing so.
Ritchie argued that NRL stars get paid extremely well and that clubs should have the right to protect their players from unnecessary risks associated with external competitions. The veteran league reporter said in the case of Addo-Carr and his Koori Knockout concussion, the HIA protocols so strictly adhered to in the NRL, were simply not up to standard.
“They go and play for their family and friends, they also get paid, paid quite handsomely to go and play these tournaments, there’s a financial incentive,” Ritchie said. “I worry at those tournaments whether there is a bounty on their heads, lets go out there and have a whack at the big star who’s in town.
“Look at ‘the Foxx’, Addo-Carr ended up getting whacked around the head, played on and ended up getting into a fight. It’s hardly ideal. Even the protocols out there... the HIA protocols aren’t there, Josh Addo-Carr is an elite player and he got knocked out and played on.”
Michael Clarke goes in to bat for NRL players
Clarke admitted that while protocols to protect and ensure player safety should be improved, he refused to accept that NRL players should be banned from taking part in such competitions. “I’d rather look at that, make sure the protocols are what they need to be instead of pulling players out of playing their sport,” Clarke argued.
“What this does for communities and rugby league in general... but you don’t want the big fish to play because they are getting paid a million bucks for their club teams? Clarke said an important part of being an elite athlete is giving back to the community and honouring the amateur competitions that helped turn them into professionals in the first place.
“I don’t ever think it is right to say 'don’t go and play in the competitions that growing up, got you to the top'," Clarke added. “I’m saying the opposite, if you need to improve conditions or make sure the rules are better for HIAs or whatever it is, go there. Don’t pull the athlete who needed these competitions to make it to the top, don’t do that.”
Ritchie suggested that Clarke might feel differently if he was the CEO of an NRL club, prompting a telling response from the Aussie cricket great. "Well you want the truth ‘Bulldog’? Clarke asked. "Then I don’t want them to play State of Origin, I don’t want them to play for the Indigenous XIII. I don’t want them to play in any of these competitions because I’ll just worry about my own backyard, but that’s not how sport works.”
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