{"id":331086,"date":"2023-09-14T22:50:05","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T22:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=331086"},"modified":"2023-09-15T01:02:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T01:02:13","slug":"meningas-hope-for-latrell-after-silly-accusation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=331086","title":{"rendered":"Meninga's hope for Latrell after 'silly' accusation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian coach Mal Meninga<\/a> has thrown his support behind Latrell Mitchell<\/a> and his decision to skip end-of-year Tests.<\/p>\n

South Sydney<\/a> fullback Mitchell has made himself unavailable for Kangaroos<\/a> selection, and it was revealed this week he'll likely have surgery on a busted finger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He would have been close to a shoo-in at centre for the Pacific Cup games against New Zealand and Samoa in October. He also may have made the Prime Minister's XIII side this week alongside Bunnies teammates Cody Walker and Cameron Murray.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Legend's fear for 'fading' Knights amid 10-game streak<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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While his absence may be injury-related, the news coincided with Mitchell being accused of snubbing photo requests at a junior league day<\/a> over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\"Latrell<\/p>\n

Mitchell and his agent hit back at the comments made on 2GB's Ben Fordham Show<\/em> this week<\/a>, and the game has roundly \ufeffsupported Mitchell's version of events and rubbished the accusations.<\/p>\n

Meninga, speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> as his PM's XIII squad assembled in Sydney on Thursday, said Mitchell missing the Kangaroos games might be the best thing for him.<\/p>\n

Stream the NRL 2023 finals series live and free on<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

"I've talked to Latrell, and there's no doubt he's disappointed he's not here," Meninga said.<\/p>\n

"His welfare is more important. The club ruled him out, and we support the club.<\/p>\n

"What happened (with the photo accusations), it's just silly. I just hope he gets his (surgery), then gets away from it all, and comes back bigger and better next year."<\/p>\n

Mitchell was furious at being accused of snubbing young fans, given his reputation for going out of his way to give back to communities.<\/p>\n

\ufeffHis agent, Matt Rose, warned such baseless allegations had the potential to drive his client out of the game for good.<\/p>\n

Rugby league legend Brad Fittler could not believe Mitchell had been criticised by one grandparent for supposedly turning down one photo request.<\/p>\n

"Come on… You've got to understand how many (fans) with phones now, the demand for (the players) to go in public. Do you want them to go in public?" Fittler told Wide World of Sports' Freddy and The Eighth<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

"What happens is you just take all their time away, they have no social time because of cameras."<\/p>\n

\"Gus<\/p>\n

Mitchell is a regular target for criticism despite his work with Indigenous communities and the time he gives to fans in general.<\/p>\n

Close friend Josh Addo-Carr hopes missing the post-season games will be good for Mitchell.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"He gets picked on every week, every day, and I'm feeling for him at the moment," Addo-Carr told the Herald.<\/p>\n

"I love playing with Trell. This would have been good for him, but he's getting surgery, and he needs to do what's best for his body. Hopefully we get to do it again next year."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian coach Mal Meninga has thrown his support behind Latrell Mitchell and his decision to skip end-of-year Tests. South Sydney fullback Mitchell has made himself […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":317462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=331086"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331090,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331086\/revisions\/331090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/317462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=331086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=331086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=331086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}