NRL 2021: Adam Doueihi’s cruel injury blow seal Luke Brooks’ Wests Tigers future | Sport Confidential

Wests Tigers will have to do without their best player for the opening three months of the 2022 campaign, and there are flow-on effects. THAT AND MORE IN SPORT CONFIDENTIAL.

Brisbane Broncos’ Millie Boyle could come under scrutiny over the Adam Elliot bathroom incident. Picture: Josh Woning.

Adam Doueihi has confirmed he will miss a large chunk of next season with the Tigers star forced to go under the knife and undergo another knee reconstruction.

Doeuihi took to Twitter to share the bad news.

“ACL reco x2 loading…” he wrote.

ACL reco x2 loading…

— Adam Doueihi (@AdamDoueihi6) August 27, 2021

Doueihi is expected to be sidelined for the opening three months of next season which puts to bed any doubt regarding Luke Brooks’ future at Wests Tigers.

Given it is his second operation, it is expected he will be sidelined for nine months – ruling him out of the opening 12 rounds of next season. Parramatta’s Maika Sivo suffered a similar fate last weekend.

Adam Doueihi looks set to miss the start of the 2022 season, with fears he has suffered another ACL injury. Picture: AAP.

It is a cruel blow to a Tigers side which cannot afford to lose its best player for a prolonged period with the 23-year-old already touted as the club’s long-term skipper.

What it does do is it put to bed the whispers surrounding Brooks’ time at the club. While the Tigers have publicly and privately backed their No. 7 it has not stopped other clubs – including Canberra – from being linked to Brooks. The Tigers have always maintained Brooks is going nowhere.

It is also puts new recruit Jackson Hastings under the spotlight with Brooks and Hastings now the likely round one halves partnership for the Tigers next year.

Moses Mbye is St George Illawarra bound while Billy Walters will join Brisbane. Jock Madden has an opportunity in the final two games of this season to push his case to start in round one next year.

EXPENSIVE KISS: NRL COMES DOWN HARD ON ELLIOTT

Canterbury will now consider if they will further sanction back-rower Adam Elliott after he was whacked with a $10,000 fine for his bathroom kiss with NRWL player Millie Boyle.

Elliott has been hit with a breach notice by the NRL, with Canterbury now deciding if they will sack the star Bulldog, who has two years left on his $1 million deal.

Elliott has been stood-down for the rest of the season.

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Brisbane Broncos’ Millie Boyle could come under scrutiny over the Adam Elliot bathroom incident. Picture: Josh Woning.

The NRL had never sanctioned an NRLW player for an integrity-related offence with Millie Boyle becoming the first. It was left to the NSW Rugby League to deal with Nita Maynard after she was convicted of two assaults earlier this year as she was not a contracted NRLW player at the time.

Boyle has been issued a warning over the incident and “will be given education and training regarding the obligations of NRL and NRLW players in public”.

Elliott now faces a nervous wait with the Bulldogs expected to decide his fate in the next 72 hours.

Regardless, Elliott’s reputation has taken a beating in recent months even among his peers. Manly prop Josh Aloali - who alongside with Boyle’s brother Morgan – posted an Instagram story of a Fox Sports headline of Elliott being stood down for the rest of the season – with a rat emoji.

The Bulldogs could still punish Adam Elliott further, despite already being fined by the NRL. Picture: NRL Photos

DESPERATE DRAGONS

The Dragons welcomed Freddy Lussick from the Sydney Roosters for the next two matches and are open to keeping him at the club beyond that should he impress. Lussick, who has another year left on his deal, could be squeezed out of the Roosters given the recent signing of Connor Watson.

The Dragons tried to loan Melbourne’s Ryley Jacks ahead of the match against the Roosters but were knocked back by the NRL because they did not consider Jacks an out-and-out hooker. The Dragons could land Jacks or Lussick as depth signings for next season.

SMOOTH RECOVERY

Luke Keary is confident he will be back to full training by December as he makes his long road back from a knee reconstruction. The Roosters are taking a cautionary approach with their star half who has indicated he will be right to play during next year’s pre-season having been sidelined since round three.

“We’re not in a rush,” Keary said. “We don’t have to go back for this year so we are taking an extra few weeks with everything. There has been not setbacks.

“By December I’ll be back with the team and by January I’ll be back to normal and ready to play footy again.”

Keary has been naturally keeping a close eye on his Roosters teammates from afar including teenager Sam Walker.

“I speak to Sam a lot,” Keary said. “We don’t talk too much about footy. You’re not around during the team meetings so I let them do their thing.”

Suncorp Stadium looks set to host the NRL Grand Final in 2021, with the venue still free for October 3rd. Picture: Getty Images.

GRAND FINAL LOCKED IN?

Suncorp Stadium is firming to host its first NRL grand final after the Rugby Championship schedule was announced – keeping the venue free on October 3.

Suncorp Stadium will play host to a rugby union double header on September 18 while Gold Coast will hold two games a day before the NRL decider.

There were hopes that Sydney could potentially host a crowd as part of a vaccination rollout but that is growing increasingly unlikely.

LIFELINE

Broncos hooker Danny Levi is UK-bound after agreeing to join Huddersfield next season. The Kiwi and Samoan international was thrown a lifeline by the Broncos this year and has played eight games this season.

GOOD CAUSE

Storm Cameron Munster looks swish on the field and he is just as ‘Swysh’ off it.

The Queensland Origin pivot has signed up for Swysh, a personalised video platform in which sports stars can provide birthday shout outs, coaching tips or motivational messages to everyday Australians.

Munster is one of more than 700 Australian sports stars who have signed up and helped raise more than $200,000 for children’s charities.

“I am currently signed up, I joined about three weeks ago and I’ve enjoyed interacting with fans and people in the game who idolise NRL players,” Munster said.

“The money goes to the Starlight Foundation and they raised $200,000 last year, so it’s great for NRL players to be able to help out a good cause.”

COVID STRIKES AGAIN

Covid has KO’d the biggest boxing event ever planned in Australia.

No Limit’s Magic Boxing Weekend has been cancelled due to border closures and uncertainty around growing Delta variant case numbers across the country.

The three-day, 30-fight event had been planned for November, and was supposed to have involved a special appearance by American heavyweight superstar Deontay Wilder, and culminate in a Tim Tszyu world title eliminator.

No Limit is still working to get the Tszyu fight against former world champion Tony Harrison signed for November, but the concept of a Magic Weekend has been scrapped.

“We already had 22 fights signed off, so this isn’t a decision based on not being able to get the fighters, but the boxing fans in Australia,” No Limit chief executive George Rose said.

“We’ve put it on the shelf for 12 months. These are the times we’re in right now, our whole focus is to get the Tim Tszyu fight scheduled.”

The Boxing Magic Weekend was to run over three days, in either Sydney, Melbourne or Gold Coast.

With Covid cases exploding in NSW and Victoria, the Gold Coast was the only viable venue.

But with borders set to remain closed to Queensland for the foreseeable future, Rose made the call on Thursday to delay the event until next year.

“Our intent is to make the Boxing Magic Weekend the centrepiece of the sport here in Australia, make it an annual event that is a major part of the sporting landscape, and to do that without the fans wouldn’t work,” Rose said.

“We want groups of boxing fans travelling from around the country to watch three days of unbelievable fights involving some of the best boxers in Australia.

“So we’ll look to do that in November 2022 when things have hopefully settled and travel is possible.”

No Limit’s Magic Boxing Weekend was meant to feature Deontay Wilder, but has been cancelled due to Covid. Picture: Getty Images.

POOR FORM

There will be cuts to Australia’s Rugby Sevens program after the men were dumped out in the Olympics quarter-finals for the second time.

It’s expected only eight full-time contracts will be offered to the men’s team, with most of the players also having to double up in XVs through Super Rugby teams who can subsidise their wages.

The rest of the squad who aspire to compete at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2024 Olympics will need to find employment elsewhere and live on part-time Sevens salaries.

Covid has cancelled most World Series events, and their next tournament is set to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham next July-August.

While Australia’s women’s team went from gold medallists in Rio to quarter-final evictees in Tokyo, they’re less likely to be impacted because they are the showpiece to attracting young girls to rugby.

BICKERING BOXERS

The mooted heavyweight showdown between Justis Huni and Kiwi giant Junior Fa has hit a hurdle because of bickering over training camp money.

Huni’s promoter Dean Lonergan said Fa’s promotional team have agreed to terms, but his manager Mark Keddell wants $20,000 for training camp costs should Covid postpone the bout.

“We’ve put forward an offer for Junior Fa to fight Justis in Australia in late February to early March next year, they asked for a guaranteed sum and we have agreed to pay that,” Lonergan said.

“Now his manager wants more share of the New Zealand pay-per-view, which you forego if you want a guaranteed sum, and $20,000 for Fa’s training costs.

“We are all in this Covid boat together, if it goes down we will just delay the fight, why should I be paying for Fa to beat my guy?”

But Keddell hit back: “If $20,000 is going to stop this fight, that’s on Dean Lonergan.

“We’ve negotiated promotional deals with Dean twice before, in good faith, and both times they’ve fallen over, so Junior feels quite strongly about this.

“It’s now time for Dean to put a little bit up for Junior and his family.”

Fa (19-1, 10KO) stands at 196cm and 120kg, and his only loss is to former world champion Joseph Parker, while Australian heavyweight champion Huni (5-0) is recovering from hand surgery after breaking it defeating Paul Gallen.

FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH

Nathan Grey has emerged as a candidate to coach the Western Force from 2023.

The former Wallabies assistant is now in charge of the national under-20s team.

Grey, the hard Wallabies midfielder who played 35 Tests between 1998-2003, worked under Michael Cheika at the NSW Waratahs and then the Wallabies.

Under coach Tim Sampson, who is contracted until the end of 2022, the Force finished third in Super Rugby AU this season, and seventh in Super Rugby trans-Tasman.

Sophie Dwyer has always wanted to play Netball and is playing in a Grand Final alongside her former idols. Picture: Getty Images.

DREAM COME TRUE

Twelve-year-old Sophie Dwyer always knew she wanted to be a famous netball player — she just didn’t know that the names that filled her scrapbook would one day become her teammates.

Dwyer, 19, will suit up for the Giants against the NSW Swifts on Saturday for the Suncorp Super Netball grand final in Brisbane — alongside April Bradley and Maddie Hay whom Dwyer coveted for autographs as a teenager.

The goal attack was reminded by her family of her starry-eyed past in a series of good luck video messages shown to players ahead of the grand final.

The Swifts and Giants’ changing rooms sit side-by-side at Netball Central in Sydney Olympic Park – no rival teams in any professional code live closer to each other.

It is the first all-NSW meeting in national netball league history - the competition has existed in different guises since 1997.

There will be plenty of spice in the match-up with Giants head coach Julie Fitzgerald the Swifts’ foundation coach that led them to five titles — think of Craig Bellamy facing the Melbourne Storm in an NRL grand final.

Coronavirus and snap lockdowns forced both teams to Queensland for the best part of this season and Swifts also relied on video good luck messages.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: LAURIE WEEKS

Two Tests for the Wallabies, 107 Super Rugby caps for Melbourne Rebels and Queensland Reds

For a kid who grew up playing league for Marrickville, it was just as well Laurie Weeks was offered a scholarship to St Joseph’s College and switched to rugby.

“Because in Year 7, I was the same size as I am now,” the 115kg tighthead prop said. “Everyone kept getting taller, I just got wider.”

But he held ambitions to become a professional footballer from that young age and went on to represent Australia in two Tests against France in 2014, and retire as the Rebels’ most-capped player (88 games) before being overtaken by Tom English in 2019.

“I started at Sydney Uni in third grade colts,” Weeks said.

“I’m a pretty positive guy anyway, and I had an underlying belief that this is what I was going to do. If you keep telling yourself that, nothing stands in your way.”

Weeks’ achievements belie his low profile.

“I watched Luc Longley’s documentary on Australian Story, and I saw [former Wallabies prop] Ben Darwin put a tweet up saying ‘Luc Longley is every prop ever’ and I couldn’t agree more,” Weeks said.

“Longley said ‘I just wanted to be around my teammates’ and I thought, ‘That’s me’. I saw so many similarities in our path in professional sport.

“Then I started thinking, ‘If I’m Longley, who was the Michael Jordan for me?’ He was relentless and demanded everything from his teammates, and I’ve got to say that person for me was Tom Carter when I started at Sydney Uni.

“He would rip into you, but we were good mates and he really drove me to be the best I could be.”

Despite being in the NSW system, and winning three successive Shute Shield premierships with Uni, the Waratahs offered Weeks an academy contract, while rivals Queensland swooped in, via forwards coach Mark Bell, with a Super Rugby deal.

“It was a no-brainer,” Weeks said.

Laurie Weeks played two Tests for the Wallabies.

He played 23 games for the Reds from 2009-10, before signing for the newly formed Rebels and becoming a foundation player in 2011.

“It was probably the wrong decision,” Weeks said. “The Reds went on to win the competition, and I felt like I played a big part in building that up. And the Rebels came last. I was driven by the collective goal for the team. If I wasn’t meant to play for the Wallabies, so be it.”

But Weeks established himself as the No.1 front-rower in Melbourne and under new Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie made his Test debut in a dour 6-0 victory over France in Melbourne. “That was the best rugby game ever,” Weeks said.

By 2018, the Western Force had been axed from Super Rugby and many players and coach Dave Wessels joined the Rebels.

“I had a calf injury that lasted the year, I wasn’t enjoying rugby anymore,” he said. “When you go from being one of the main players in the team, regular starter, in the leadership group, and there’s a transition and you’re pushed to the side, you do stop valuing yourself as a player. I thought, ‘I’m done with rugby’.”

Weeks is employed in the recruitment field and has become forwards coach of Sydney Uni under Rob Taylor.