Players from the Lebanese national team have chased and apprehended a hotel intruder, performing a citizen's arrest in the lead-up to their game against Jamaica after a number of laptops and other equipment were stolen earlier in the week.
Players confronted an unknown man who walked into the Cedars' team room in Manchester hotel. When the man decamped, a foot pursuit followed in the streets before the players detained the man until Police arrived, according to Cedars coach Michael Cheika.
“We had another intruder last night,” Cheika confirmed after the Jamaica game, per the Sydney Morning Herald.
“They say we're part-timers, I think the other part-time (work) we're doing is security.
“Someone came into the team room and I'm not sure what happened, but they called me, thank goodness, so I got down there and settled it all down a bit and the police did their bit after that.
“It was an early kick-off (against Jamaica) – I didn't want them chasing blokes down on the street at 10 o'clock at night.
“They thought they were on an episode of Law and Order. It's been a bit of a crazy week with all that happening and trying not to have that as a distraction.”
Most of the stolen electronic equipment was provided personally by Cheika, who recalled his shock at heading down to the team room and finding the equipment gone earlier in the week.
“It was pretty weird when we woke up to do a Zoom, I went down to the team room and everything was gone.
“The hotel said an hour later we'd been robbed. We got our strip back, that's the main thing.”
The team's playing kits were found at a nearby building site soon after the robbery, clearly holding little worth to the thieves. Chieka thinks they had their priorities out of order, but was thankful to have the kits back.
“The first thing I'd steal would be the Lebanese jerseys. I don't care about the computers.
“Everyone's handled the distractions pretty well . We're pushing on past that.”