{"id":71022,"date":"2021-05-14T02:29:58","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T02:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=71022"},"modified":"2021-05-14T05:05:19","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T05:05:19","slug":"im-sorry-if-i-offended-stickys-wry-netball-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=71022","title":{"rendered":"'I'm sorry if I offended': Sticky's wry netball apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has apologised for offending the netball community, over comments he made insinuating the sport was not "tough".<\/a><\/p>\n

Netballers say the veteran coach should be ashamed for his behaviour, after he suggested NRL mentors "might as well be coaching netball if they can't have tough conversations"<\/a> with their players.<\/p>\n

"I respect netball. I'm sorry if I offended any girl or boy that plays netball. All sports are tough. I understand that," Stuart said at a press conference ahead of Magic Round.<\/p>\n

"As [former manager] John Fordham once said to me, 'Mate, any publicity is good publicity, as long as they're spelling your name right'.<\/p>\n

"I hope netball take it as good publicity for them."<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Stuart said he "had a laugh about it" speaking on the netball comment uproar with "some journalists" last night.<\/p>\n

"I respect all sports and it was an off-the-cuff comment," he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

NRL 360<\/em> host Paul Kent was quoting Stuart over reports of fractured relationships with some of his Raiders players when the offending line about netball was shared.<\/p>\n

"As Ricky said to me – if I can't have tough conversations with my better players I might as well coach netball," Kent said on Fox Sports on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The comments have sparked outrage from Australian netball players.<\/a><\/p>\n

NSW Swifts player Sophie Garbin said "it was disappointing".<\/p>\n

"It's 2021, and comments like this are still getting said about women in general," the 24-year-old said.<\/p>\n

"There's no real need for it. The fact that he said it was one (thing) but the fact that no-one has pulled him up on it in the moment is even worse.<\/p>\n

"Netball deserves respect. We've got over a million girls playing and to get to the top level, it's really tough."<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/NSWSwifts\/status\/1392446459153317899?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the latest controversy for the Raiders \u2013 with the team making headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, former player John Bateman accused the club of leaking information about internal problems, saying he believed there were people within the camp trying to undermine the players.<\/p>\n

"It had to be someone in the back room, or someone who knew what happened in the conversations," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.<\/p>\n

"I had a conversation with Ricky before and he told me it wasn't him… I asked him where all these stories were coming from."<\/p>\n

\"Sterlo<\/p>\n

It comes after rumours last week star player Josh Hodgson had a heated exchange with Stuart over his performance, where the hooker stepped down from his co-captaincy role with no explanation.<\/p>\n

Four days earlier, Joe Tapine's wife took a swipe at Stuart on social media for leaving her husband on the bench.<\/p>\n

There were also reports English halfback George Williams is homesick.<\/p>\n

The Raiders are currently going through a rough patch, contributed by key players out with injuries and others being benched for underperforming.<\/p>\n

The Green Machine may turn that around though when they go head-to-head with the Bulldogs in Brisbane tomorrow, after losing their fifth game to the Newcastle Knights last weekend, pushing the side to 12th position on the ladder.<\/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":"

Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has apologised for offending the netball community, over comments he made insinuating the sport was not "tough". Netballers say the […]<\/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\/71022"}],"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=71022"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71024,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71022\/revisions\/71024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}