Exiled rugby union star Israel Folau's potential return to rugby league has hit a roadblock
Fox Sportsย is reporting that the league could block the Tongan Rugby League's attempt to make him available for the Tests against Great Britain and Australia.
According toย The Sydney Morning Herald, a call will be be made onย Thursday.
And Wests Tigers veteran Benji Marshall believes it's double standards by the league in allowing domestic violent offenders to return to the league and not Folau.
โIt doesnโt faze me if heโs allowed or heโs not allowed to play. I definitely donโt agree with the things heโs said, but to me, I think we need to decide what we forgive and what we forget,โ Marshall said on NRL 360.
โBecause I see, and this is my personal opinion, I see domestic violence as worse than what Israel did. I donโt agree with that, and yet we let people who have done those actions come back into our game.
โSo where do we sit now with whatโs right and whatโs wrong?โ
Journalist Paul Kent is startled by the prospect that Brisbane's Matt Lodge can be welcomed back into the league and touted as a potential captain following his New York rampage.
โI find it extraordinary, on one hand weโve got a player who kicks in a door, threatens to kill everyone inside, has a nine-year-old boy hiding in the bathtub asking if this is the night heโs going to die,โ Kent said.
โHeโs now being considered as the captain of the team, and on the other hand we have a guy who comes out and puts a post on social media saying that if you donโt repent because youโre certain things youโre going to hell, and we just say, โmate, canโt have this in our gameโ.โ
I do believe in freedom of speech, although in these very delicate, precious, soft & insecure days…. You are best to keep your thoughts to yourself & stay away from the social media disease.
Bunji is 100% correcto in what he said also, onya Bunji bro.
I’d love to have him at the Tigers but I think he would go to the Broncos or Storm.
What an absolute joke, the nrl is happy to have players that drink drive and assault people but wonโt let someone play over a Facebook message?
I’m with Benji on this. I don’t agree with what Folau posted, but it is extremey hypocritical of the NRL to not allow him to play, but have the likes of Lodge, Packer, Mau, Wicks etc in the game at various times who all did much worse. Not to mention they are letting Flanagan back into the game after he breached the NRL’s punishments, Folau breached his contract with the ARU, which has nothing to do with the NRL.
Saying they won’t allow him to play as it goes against the “inclusiveness” the rugby league is about is absolute rubbish. Forget about the fact that they are using the term inclusive to exclude someone, but if a line in the sand is someone who portrays his beliefs on social media, then there are a number of player who have done much, much worse who should not have their contract renewed either.
Neither the Tongan team nor rugby league in general need Folau. He turned his back on league some time ago and has never shown any affiliation with Tonga, either in league or union. He has consistently chased the money regardless.
The Tongan team, if they get onto the paddock this year, will be a force and don’t need Israel’s self serving side-show to drag them down. League have enough issues to deal with without looking for more problems and negative headlines.
The Tongan back line would look something like this:
1.. Hopoate
2. Fusitua
3. Staggs
4. Jennings.
5. Tupou
All highly credentialed NRL players who give 100% to the sport week after week.
I wonder which one of them would volunteer to sit out a couple of tests just to feed Israel’s ego?
Folau is much better then those 5 players that you named.
Was better once upon a time but would struggle to get through a game of league now, let alone a test match.
Hasn’t played league for nine years.
Anyway, whether he is still any good or not is clearly not the point.