{"id":41838,"date":"2021-03-07T02:08:07","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T03:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=41838"},"modified":"2021-03-07T05:16:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T05:16:43","slug":"folaus-nrl-bid-slammed-by-former-test-teammate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=41838","title":{"rendered":"Folau's NRL bid slammed by former Test teammate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel Folau<\/a> should not have a place in either the NRL or rugby union in Australia, former Wallabies teammate Drew Mitchell says.<\/p>\n

There is still some chance of Folau being picked up by an NRL team, though his hopes nosedived dramatically when a St George Illawarra Dragons bid fell over<\/a> within days due to intense backlash. NRL chairman Peter V'landys said any application to sign Folau would still be considered<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cross-code superstar, 32 next month, was all but blacklisted in Australia after his 2019 sacking by Rugby Australia, due to homophobic social media comments.<\/p>\n

Mitchell has outspokenly opposed Folau being welcomed back into the fold and said that the NRL should stick to its established stance; that he has no place in the game while standing by his hardline views.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"As players, of course you want the best talent playing for your team and that's exactly what Israel Folau is. He's a great talent, there's no one questioning that," Mitchell, a Stan Sport rugby commentator, said on Sports Sunday.<\/p>\n

"But unfortunately now, there's excess baggage that comes with that.<\/p>\n

"Those guys that have endorsed Israel to come back and play rugby league in the NRL aren't necessarily the ones having to deal with sponsors and other stakeholders within those teams and organisations, which have a pretty big impact in terms of moving forward and whether these decisions are made or not.<\/p>\n

"The thing for me is, the NRL had a stance on this a few years ago and what's changed in that time? Nothing's changed, it's only just been a few years that's gone in between.<\/p>\n

"He hasn't come out and said anything, he hasn't addressed it. Nothing's actually changes in the landscape, other than the fact we're [two] years later."<\/p>\n

Folau hasn't played in the NRL since 2010, with the Brisbane Broncos.<\/p>\n

He played last season in rugby league with French team Catalans Dragons. With Folau chasing an NRL return, Catalans haven't listed him on their roster for this season.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel Folau should not have a place in either the NRL or rugby union in Australia, former Wallabies teammate Drew Mitchell says. There is still […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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\/41838"}],"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=41838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41840,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41838\/revisions\/41840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}