Bulldogs supremo Phil Gould has teed off on the Rugby League Players’ Association and expressed his frustration on the period of time NRL gamers have off.
Gould’s feedback come within the wake of Souths star Latrell Mitchell deciding to withdraw from the Kangaroos squad for the Pacific Championships with Samoa and New Zealand in October and November with a hand damage.
“He (Mitchell) has a hand injury picked up late in the season, has seen a surgeon and it will probably require surgery. Souths have spoken to Mal Meninga and have said he’s unlikely,” Phil Rothfield stated on Monday’s episode of NRL 360.
As it stands, NRL gamers who’ve participated in 4 pre-seasons or extra are allowed ten weeks annual depart on the finish of the season whereas these gamers which have accomplished lower than 4 solely get eight weeks off.
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Gould says that as a result of “ridiculous” RLPA guidelines that gamers should have this a lot annual depart coupled with the “useless” scheduling of consultant soccer, accidents usually tend to incur.
“Remember last year we had a World Cup and a lot of our rep players didn’t join training until January and started the season underdone, that led to a lot of niggling injuries at the early part of the season,” Gould stated on 100% Footy.
“You compound that with another off season because of these ridiculous return to play, return to train type things that they have with the RLPA now about the time you’ve got to have off.
“It’s unbelievable the amount of time they get off.
“But because you can’t get them back to training and because they’ve got to have time off, poor dears, you play this rep football at the end of the year, and you do that year after year after year, they’re getting less and less training and less and less of the training they need and that’s where injuries are going to occur.
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“I love players playing rep football, I want them to play rep football. The scheduling is a bit useless at times and you have these silly rules about time off and when they can return to training and giving the poor dears less training time.”
The announcement of Mitchell’s surgical procedure prompted Braith Anasta to query why the Rabbitohs fullback waited till now to go below the knife.
“Because I think they looked at other ways, physio and rehab etc,” Rothfield replied.
“So what they’ve decided is instead of waiting six weeks until the Tests are over, get it done now, get a good pre-season with Souths.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that (Souths) are encouraging Trell to get it done early because Trell had trouble this year with his football, his long spell (off).
“They want him fit at the beginning of next season. This side missed the eight this year and he is their superstar and he does need a good off-season.”
Mitchell definitely gained’t be the one participant who takes themselves out of competition for Kangaroos squad due to accidents or different issues over the subsequent couple of weeks.
“So you’re going to get some that will pull out, some that will want to play for their country, some won’t, some will make up excuses, some won’t and then they’ll all have a rest until after Christmas and they’ll start slow again next year,” Gould stated.
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
