At the centre of the drama were claims of agitation from Williams, with some reports suggesting he left the club with no option but to grant him an immediate release.<\/p>\n
Williams emphatically took to social media, returning serve over the claims,<\/a> and reiterating he only asked for a release for season's end.<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/George7Williams\/status\/1397107917006860291<\/a><\/p>\n "I asked for a release weeks ago for the end of the season," Williams tweeted.<\/p>\n "Not once did I ask for an immediate release but Instead of supporting me the club kicked me out the door."<\/p>\n With his partner expecting their first child, the England star reportedly approached coach Ricky Stuart in April about seeking an early exit from his deal.<\/p>\n The Raiders had hoped to find a like-for-like replacement before releasing Williams.<\/p>\n But having arrived in Canberra weeks before the last year's pandemic, Williams had been unable to see family, leading to a bout of homesickness that reached boiling point.<\/p>\n The whole saga is just the latest bitter chapter in the Raiders' spectacular 2021 downfall after years of clinical football under coach Ricky Stuart – and Phil Gould believes it's another sign of something gone severely wrong at the club.<\/p>\n "When the story first broke earlier in the year that because of COVID, the distance, the inability for international travel, being away from family and the prospect that he couldn't get back to visit was going to be difficult, I totally understood," Gould told Wide World of Sports' Six Tackles with Gus<\/em> Podcast.<\/p>\n "What we're dealing with has put pressure on a lot of people. He's a young man that is playing halfway around the world from where he was born, away from his family, he's about to have children, so I understood it.<\/p>\n "But yesterday the news that this had happened so quickly was a bit staggering actually. I saw the social media post from him putting the facts out there that he'd been told to go but he was prepared to stay.<\/p>\n "But we'd been saying it for weeks, everyone's been tip-toeing around the Raiders because we can't believe their form. We can't believe what we're seeing at the moment because that's a talented side. I've been saying to myself there's something not right there – there's something wrong.<\/p>\n "This is not a talent issue, there is something mentally wrong across the club and across the team. You've got to remember they've got a number of Englishmen in the side, and have had.<\/p>\n "Without trying to speculate what that might be I think it's been obvious that there is something wrong there on the mental side that's not allowing them to play their best football. They look like a very distracted football team. And now, boom, we get maybe a small taste of what's going on mentally with a number of the players.<\/p>\n "When it gets to things like that, then you're probably better off cutting your losses and starting again. I'd say so [Ricky's decided to pull the bandaid off]. By the sounds of it – without knowing the full thing."<\/p>\n Gould revealed that he was going to meet personally with Stuart in an attempt to get to the bottom of the rot that is plaguing the Raiders.<\/p>\n "I'm actually going to have lunch with Ricky," Gould said.<\/p>\n "I just rang up to see how he was going. I said, 'mate you want a lunch or something?'. We've planned it for next week around when Canberra has a bye.<\/p>\n "Ricky is the grand finals of long lunches. I can remember sitting down for lunch one day at midday and we were still going at 6.30 the next morning. That was normal."<\/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> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Phil Gould has unpacked the very public, "staggering" fallout between the Canberra Raiders and English import George Williams, and believes it is indicative of "something […]<\/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\/76249"}],"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=76249"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76251,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76249\/revisions\/76251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
![\"Williams](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/05\/360291\/pickerImage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n