By Billie Eder and Dan Walsh
Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf believes the NRL had no other option than to relocate their opening round match against the Rabbitohs from Brisbane to Sydney on Friday night, with Cyclone Alfred forecast to make landfall on Friday.
Woolf would not expand on conversations with players, such as whether they were all given the option to stay home, or discussions with players’ family members who took to social media to vent their frustrations with the match going ahead, but said the three players who chose to stay behind – Kodi Nikorima, Mark Nicholls and Kenny Bromwich – had his “full support”.
“Three guys obviously chose to stay home, and they do that with my full support,” Woolf said. “There was a discussion that happened, and all the guys have got different circumstances and different things going on there that affect those decisions
“So, as I said, they’ve certainly got my support, they’ve got the club’s full support, and there are no issues there whatsoever ... I’m not going to go into each one, they’re all personal conversations. But I certainly understand their predicament and why they haven’t come away.”
Sean O’Sullivan replaces Nikorima at five-eighth, while Josh Kerr comes in for Nicholls in Woolf’s gameday 17. Nicholls reportedly spent Wednesday fortifying his family home with sandbags, while Nikorima opted out of the Dolphins season opener given his wife is six months pregnant.
Bree Nikorima had called on the NRL to “do better” in a now-deleted Instagram post on Wednesday morning, as she prepared to care for the couple’s two young children while her husband was away.
Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf.Credit: Getty Images
The Rugby League Players’ Association said it was liaising with players to determine what options were provided to them.
“The NRL informed the RLPA that a decision had been made to relocate the game and that an announcement was imminent,” the statement read.
“The RLPA were provided some high-level reasoning. We are currently working with the playing group to understand how the decision-making process unfolded and how the players were consulted or informed.”
However, Woolf said he didn’t believe the NRL had any alternative, with neither club having an overlapping bye later in the season.
Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett.Credit: Getty Images
“I don’t think there was another option, to be honest. I haven’t seen anyone come up with a better option, and moving to byes when our byes don’t match up with Souths and all those kinds of things just don’t work,” Woolf said.
“So I just don’t see what other decisions could have been made and when we looked at that, us as a coaching staff, our admin staff, players, we all knew what we had to do.”
Woolf wouldn’t divulge what options were given to players, but said the players who did raise concerns about travelling were given his blessing to stay behind.
“We obviously had a couple of big days in terms of trying to figure out and trying to get some clarity, and it’s hard to get clarity because the cyclone keeps changing what it’s doing,” Woolf said.
“There was a number of conversations, a number of discussions, the guys that had some concerns came and saw me. Some of those guys obviously came away and played as well, and they’ve done that knowing that they’ve set things up back at their house as best they can to make sure their families are really safe, and they’re comfortable with that.
“Others couldn’t do the same thing, so they’ve made sure that they stay, and they look after that first.”
Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett echoed Woolf’s view on the match going ahead.
“They’ve [NRL] done the right thing,” he said ahead of his first clash against the expansion club he helped build. “It’s important [that the game be played] to everybody involved in the game, the fans, the TV stations and all the people that support the game.”
Bennett declined to comment on the Dolphins players’ withdrawal and said the disruption “didn’t advantage” either side, given Souths’ home game later in the season has now been traded back to the Dolphins.
“They’ll handle it, they were on the plane yesterday, they’ll be 17 guys ready to play,” Bennett said.
“They are a wonderful club, I was really proud of my time there with them, and they will do their best with whatever they put on the field.”
Meanwhile, the Broncos have been granted permission by the Queensland premiers’ office to return home on a charter flight straight after Thursday’s clash with the Roosters at Allianz Stadium.
Given Brisbane Airport’s closure, Michael Maguire’s players and staff will board a flight to Toowoomba late Thursday night. They will then board a two-hour bus back to Brisbane, which will deliver them home well after midnight.
Broncos CEO Dave Donaghy accompanied the team to Sydney earlier this week before flying back to Queensland to help coordinate support for the families of players and staff.
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