NRL 2021: Wests Tigers fume as Daine Laurie pictured celebrating Penrith’s grand final win in Panthers jersey
Wests Tigers star Daine Laurie has been forced to apologise to fans after causing a social media storm with a “silly” photo.
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Daine Laurie has apologised to Wests Tigers supporters and vowed to win back their trust after being photographed celebrating Penrith’s grand final win in a Panthers jersey.
Laurie, outstanding in his first season with the Tigers, was criticised by sections of the club’s supporters after a picture emerged on social media of the fullback leaning out of a car window in Penrith regalia.
Tigers officials addressed the matter with Laurie on Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning the remorseful fullback told News Corp he had made an error of judgement.
“Silly by me, silly mistake, but I am really sorry for it,” Laurie said.
“It is not a good look. I went to school with nearly half the (Penrith side). I have been down here for five years since I left home.
“I have a really close relationship with all of them. I was just happy that they won. Obviously the jersey was a big mistake.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a silly mistake and it will never happen again.”
Laurie made his first grade debut with the Panthers before moving to the Tigers almost a year ago. It is understood he was photographed in the jersey that he wore when he made his maiden appearance for the Panthers in 2020.
While the Tigers understand that Laurie still retains ties to his former club, they also acknowledge it wasn’t a great look for the 22-year-old to be seen in a Penrith jersey.
While he is very much a Tigers player these days, his show of support for his former club prompted backlash from Tigers supporters on Wednesday.
The timing didn’t help. Laurie was the joint winner earlier this week of the Kelly-Barnes medal, sharing the honour as the club’s player of the year with halfback Luke Brooks.
He shared the award despite missing the final rounds of the season with a broken leg. In a difficult year for the club, Laurie was one of the few shining lights.
“It was a big mistake and I am very sorry about it,” Laurie said.
“Hopefully we can move past it and win back the trust of the Tigers fans.”
How to be the best fullback at two clubs by Daine Laurie #NRLhttps://t.co/ga5VF4UyFT
— Bryson (@brysonosyrb) October 5, 2021
NO CLAIM BONUS: HOW PANTHERS AVOID GRAND FINAL HANGOVER
— Dean Ritchie
Premiers Penrith have become the first NRL club to remove representative and grand final bonuses from their players’ contracts in a move which will ensure their salary cap-complaint grand final-winning side will reunite to defend their title next season.
News Corp has learnt Penrith has vetoed all additional payments to players outside their standard contracts to ensure unexpected bonuses do not force players to be cut through a ruptured salary cap.
NRL officials concede clubs have been inadvertently pushed over their salary cap through whopping player bonuses for winning a grand final, playing a nominated amount of games and representative selection.
Over the past two years, the Panthers have been working intensely to eradicate bonus clauses in all player contracts – the end result being this current team can remain together for 2022.
Penrith management has now “tidied up” their once troubled salary cap and the bold move also ensures the 2021 premiers remain salary cap compliant.
“We now go forward with no surprising bonuses in player contracts which can affect the post-year salary cap,” Panthers Group CEO Brian Fletcher said. “Our contracts are now neat and tidy. If you’re on $200,000 then you get paid $200,000.
“There are now no surprises with our cap after winning a grand final. There’s no problems with any of that now.
“That’s where you get into trouble and we have been in trouble before but the retention committee has that well under control. Our contracts offer very limited upside for playing Test, Origin or winning grand finals.
“Clubs don’t want to get to the stage where they have to get rid of a player because another player was owed a $100,000 bonus. We have tidied up all that.
“If you’re part of a grand final side then your value automatically increases – that, in our minds, is equivalent to a bonus.”
Fletcher insisted his club’s new clean contract system ensured bonuses could not be manipulated by players if senior management moved on.
“This prevents that possibility from happening with a change of management. Nothing is hidden,” Fletcher said.
“You get a new CEO thinking his cap is $9.8m when then you have a large contingent playing Origin and there is suddenly $400,000 in bonuses.
“All this is under very good management at the moment at Penrith because we are constantly working on a tight cap and you have to be well aware of that.
“The thing with State of Origin, you don’t need bonuses because the players get paid to play Origin and we pay them as well. The players understand that.”
With a young squad sticking together, many are tipping Penrith could forge an NRL dynasty.
“The beauty is we have won a comp and the average age next year is still only 25 years old,” Fletcher said. “We are going to continue being competitive for a long time. This isn’t going away.”
During the year, Panthers coach Ivan Cleary stated the NRL should consider implementing a new format where player bonuses were removed from the salary cap.
That, Cleary said, would reward, not penalise, clubs who develop their own players.
Penrith has lost Matt Burton, Brent Naden, Tevita Pangai Jr (all Canterbury) and Kurt Capewell (Brisbane) for next season.
Some bookies have already installed Penrith as $5.50 premiership favourites to start 2022.
GUS TEXTS WHICH INSPIRED PANTHERS’ TITLE WIN
—Fatima Kdouh
Penrith five-eighth Jarome Luai has revealed a text message from former Panthers supremo Phil Gould helped inspire the livewire playmaker and his side to premiership glory against South Sydney.
Gould was the main architect in building Penrith’s junior pathways system, which is now bearing the fruits of success with players like Luai, Stephen Crichton, Brian To’o, Dylan Edwards and James Fisher-Harris.
While Gould no longer has an official role with the club, he remains a mentor like figure to many young players like Luai.
“Gus sent me a message before the game [on Sunday],” Luai revealed.
“He said ‘good luck but you don’t have good luck in the game of rugby league you make your own luck’. So, I took that into account today, everything is effort out there. It was a good message from Gus.”
Luai said the message was made even more poignant given the way the Panthers lost last year’s grand final to the Melbourne Storm.
Craig Bellamy’s men blew Penrith off the park in opening 20 minutes forcing the men from the foot of the mountains to chase down an almost unassailable lead.
“Yeah, we definitely [didn’t make our own luck] and we made a few mistakes. We let it get the best of us,” Luai said. “But when things didn’t go our way tonight, we stuck together.
“We stayed in the moment and that something that we took as a theme out of last year. Just stay present in the game. Don’t worry about the clock or what’s to come. Just play every play, and that was pretty good [on Sunday]. But Gould’s timely message have not been the only words to inspire the Panthers to grand final glory in season 2021.
Star back Stephen Crichton revealed a specially recorded video of enforcer James Fisher Harris has been played on repeat all season long.
Crichton, who scored an intercept try in Sunday’s 14-12 win against the Rabbitohs, said it was customary for the team’s leaders to address the playing group at the start of every pre-season.
But the softly spoken Fisher-Harris opted for a different approach, believing a prerecorded video would him to better express his message to teammates.
“We were all burning last year, but Fish the most,” Crichton said.
“At the start of the year he [made] a good video about last year just how much it burnt, how much the grand final [loss] hurt.
We watch his video all the time and it always gives us goose bumps.
“The video talks about how we missed a lot of opportunities [in the 2020 grand final] and that we definitely didn’t want to miss our opportunities this year.
“We played it in our team meeting most of the times. It gets all the boys hyped up.”
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