Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson has come to the defence of Spencer Leniu following a fiery on-field and post-match exchange between the forward and NRL legend Johnathan Thurston on Friday night.
The drama unfolded during and after the Roosters’ 26-16 win over the Brisbane Broncos, in what was Leniu’s first game against the side since last year’s racism scandal involving Broncos playmaker Ezra Mam.
In the tense confrontation, Leniu allegedly called Thurston a ‘f***wit’ while still on the field with 20 minutes to go. After the final whistle, he reportedly approached Thurston again and referred to him as a ‘f***ing c***’.
The altercation was reportedly triggered by Thurston’s past public comments, in which he condemned the NRL’s handling of the racism incident and called Leniu’s eight-week ban too lenient.
Thurston had previously said on Channel Nine’s Today program, ‘The NRL had a great opportunity to make a stand, not only for the game but for society as well. I think the game has failed in this instance.’
He argued that Leniu should have received a 12-week suspension instead of eight for calling Mam a monkey during their round one clash in Las Vegas.
Roosters forward Spencer Leniu and Cowboys great Johnathan Thurston had a heated conversation at fulltime on Friday night at Suncorp Stadium
Roosters coach Trent Robinson bristled at suggestions that Spencer Leniu had done anything wrong in the confrontations with Thurston
Speaking after Friday night’s match, Robinson criticised the media’s line of questioning and insisted that Leniu had done nothing wrong.
‘There’s a discussion there, but from what I saw there wasn’t any crossing the line there,’ Robinson said. ‘I don’t know why – Spencer, he didn’t go and approach anybody. I don’t know why you’re trying to put it on Spence here.’
The Roosters coach went further, accusing the media of pre-judging the situation.
‘This is the way the questions are coming, you guys just have got to be careful the way that you guys are asking questions as well,’ he said.
‘I don’t think it’s on anyone, I think it is a discussion between two men. So cool your jets when it comes to accusations around somebody, the way you guys are questioning there you’ve already formed an opinion.’
Robinson downplayed the severity of the exchange between Leniu and Thurston.
‘Two guys having a conversation, it might get heated. But nothing wrong was said, as far as I know, and it was about an incident and that’s OK for guys to have that conversation,’ he said.
‘They just had a discussion on the sideline, I don’t think the details are really clear yet but it’s just two passionate guys having a conversation about differences of opinion I think.’
Thurston was working as part of the Channel Nine commentary team when the incident happened
Thurston, a premiership winner with the North Queensland Cowboys, had called for a greater penalty when Spencer Leniu was suspended last year for racially villifying Ezra Mam
Roosters teammate Siua Wong and Broncos veteran Ben Hunt intervened to help diffuse the situation.
A source told The Sydney Morning Herald that Thurston appeared stunned by Leniu’s words during the second-half incident and the post-match confrontation.
Leniu has acknowledged that the outburst stemmed from lingering frustration over the way last year’s incident was publicly addressed.
The Roosters enforcer was banned for eight matches after admitting to calling Mam a monkey, a slur Thurston and many others in the game considered deeply offensive.
Thurston, a proud Indigenous Australian, previously revealed he had spoken to Mam after the incident and said the young playmaker was ‘pretty shattered’.
‘I know Spencer has come out and owned it like he has, he apologised to Ezra,’ Thurston said. ‘He has great family support around him and players around him as well.’
Following the Las Vegas match, Leniu offered a personal apology and even volunteered to travel to Brisbane to apologise in person, but Mam declined the meeting.
The incident led to a 90-minute judiciary hearing in Sydney, where Leniu pleaded guilty to contrary conduct and was suspended until round 10.
Despite the off-field drama, Robinson expressed pride in his team’s on-field performance.
‘We obviously missed the mark in Round 1 but we’ve been up to our eyeballs in every game since,’ he said. ‘There’s a real spirit in this team and you saw that from the start.’
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