NRL to hold talks with Warriors as player rebellion brews over families

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo will hold emergency talks with the Warriors over the weekend as he attempts to quell a quiet rebellion.

Interim coach Todd Payten watches the Warriors training at Central Coast Stadium on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo will hold emergency talks with the Warriors over the weekend as he attempts to quell a quiet rebellion that has been brewing over the failure to have all the NZ players’ families join them in the country.

As Melbourne prepare to receive an exemption to relocate to Queensland and play out of Suncorp Stadium, The Australian understands at least three Warriors players — prop Agnatius Paasi, and wingers David Fusitu'a and Ken Maumalo — are weighing up the prospect of returning to New Zealand.

Kayo is your ticket to the 2020 NRL Telstra Premiership. Every game of every round Live & On-Demand with no-ad breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys confirmed talks were still ongoing with state and federal government officials over gaining an exemption for the families of Warriors players to join them in Australia.

Yet the longer it has gone on, the more frustrated some players have become and there is genuine concern that they may decide to head home.

That would be a disaster for the Warriors and the NRL, and likely force the New Zealand side to explore borrowing more players from their rivals.

The issue has been simmering for weeks and emotions are running high given the club’s recent decision to sack coach Stephen Kearney combined with the amount of time some players have been isolated from loved ones.

V’landys said he was still hopeful that the NRL would be able to gain some form of exemption that would allow family members to enter the country without being forced to go into quarantine in a hotel room for 14 days.

“We’re not sitting on our hands,” V’landys said.

“We thought by now there would have been a bubble between Australia and New Zealand. It has been slower than we thought.”

Warriors chief executive Cameron George confirmed the players would be addressed by the NRL once they got Friday night’s game against Melbourne out of the way.

“Their families have been applying for exemptions and rightly so,” George said.

“If they don’t get them we will need to have a chat. At the end of the day they (the NRL) committed to the players that they would do everything possible to get their families over.

“We’re going to have a chat about it over the weekend. We’re in a queue with plenty of people trying to get an exemption.”

The Warriors have toiled manfully under the most difficult of circumstances but the strain is beginning to show, particularly on the players who have been separated from their family for weeks on end.

George has nothing but admiration for the way Abdo and V’landys have handled the situation but the sense is that the players need to be hear something directly from head office if their concerns are to be assuaged.

“Peter is the best front-row forward in the competition at the moment with the amount of hit-ups he has taken,” George said.

“He’s working double time. There is no clouding the fact that the ultimate position is for their families to come over.”

While the NRL works overtime on reuniting the Warriors players with their families, the Storm are expected to be cleared on Friday to move to Queensland, where they will be based on the Sunshine Coast and play out of Suncorp Stadium.

The Storm are expected to play at least their round 8 game against Sydney Roosters in Brisbane, having been relocated due to a spike in COVID-19 cases in Victoria.

“It’s been a very different week,” Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy said. “Our footy lives and our private lives got tipped upside down. I‘m not quite sure what the effect’s going to be … but we’ve got a pretty tough group of players.”

They will need to adjust quickly given they face the Warriors on Friday night. The Warriors have endured a tumultuous week themselves, having begun with the sacking of Kearney, a protege of Bellamy’s at the Storm.

Bellamy’s reaction to the news of Kearney’s axing mirrored that of the wider rugby league community.

“Most of the people in the rugby league world were quite surprised at what happened to Steve,” Bellamy said. “I don‘t know the ins and outs but it seemed a very strange decision after what they’ve been through.

“They’ve done eight weeks ago what we’re doing now. They’ve managed a few victories and a couple of really good performances.”