It was very strange seeing New Zealand doing a victory lap with what I consider to be OUR World Cup, and while it was great for the game to see it happen make no mistake, I wanted Australia to win the big one.
Having said that, I think the reaction by some within the Australian camp, and in particular Ricky Stuart has been bloody disgraceful!
If its not bad enough that some of the players had a whinge about the referee to journalists, Ricky Stuart went all out, abusing them at the post match ceremony and then again the next day when he saw them in a Brisbane hotel.
Ricky Stuart is a great coach, and lord knows I’d rather have a coach that gets pissed off about losing a game then someone that’s as calm as a Hindu Cow, but if all the talk about wanting to push forward the international game was true, then why the over the top reaction?
Sure Klien did Australia no favors, but its Test football, if you want favors you don’t belong at that level (Look at England for proof!), and at the end of the day, New Zealand were the better team on the night.
Now, if Australia had been screwed out of the game, I might understand the reaction. But when you give away an obvious penalty try and then you throw the Kiwi’s another gift and you find yourselves getting smashed, you can’t complain about the frigging ref!
I dont think Stuart should lose his job, but he defiantly needs to pull his head in.
This whole episode shows why the RLIF needs to be Independence from the ARL, NZRL, RFL and any other national governing body.
They all have their own self interests to serve, and how can you end up with a decent process in regards to suspensions, fines and such when the people making these decisions are in some cases also in charge of defending the people they are judging?
I’d suggest that the money raised during the World Cup should go into the process of forming an independent IRLF, however all you’d end up with is a bunch of suits looking for easy handouts and free trips away, making terrible decisions and doing nothing good for the game anyway.
I created an account purely so I could tell you that defiantly is a different word to definitely. How you could possibly let such a stupid spelling mistake through, hurts my brain. Search “defiantly” of twitter to see how stupid you seem to me.
Really? You registered to point out my spell check on an old article stuffed up one word?