{"id":77060,"date":"2021-05-28T00:12:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T00:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=77060"},"modified":"2021-05-28T01:58:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T01:58:13","slug":"who-vlandys-admires-most-out-of-de-belin-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=77060","title":{"rendered":"Who V'landys admires most out of de Belin saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

NRL boss Peter V'landys<\/a> is making no apologies for the fact Jack de Belin<\/a> has been sidelined for more than two seasons,<\/a> as the Dragons forward prepares for his rugby league return.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Office of the Department of Public Prosecutions yesterday confirmed de Belin would not face a third trial on sexual assault charges, after two juries were unable to reach a verdict on five of the six charges against the 30-year-old.<\/a> He was found not guilty of a sixth charge.<\/p>\n

He's expected to return to the field this weekend in the NSW Cup, ahead of a possible NRL comeback next weekend.<\/p>\n

Under the NRL's no-fault stand down policy, de Belin hasn't played since he was charged in late 2018.<\/p>\n

The policy, which was implemented during the reign of former ARLC chairman Peter Beattie, is here to stay, according to V'landys.<\/p>\n

"Absolutely I feel sorry for Jack, but what we had to do as a game, we had a very serious position, being custodians of the game, and we have to consider the game as a whole," V'landys told Radio 2GB's Ben Fordham.<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/ben-fordham-full-show\/peter-vlandys-says-alternate-venues-to-be-consider\/embed<\/a><\/p>\n

"I think the way Peter Beattie did it is one of the greatest bits of leadership I have seen in my career. <\/p>\n

"We had a major problem, it had to be addressed, our commercial partners were threatening us, and we had to consider the game as a whole.<\/p>\n

"That's exactly what we did, and we took one of the toughest stances in Australian sport, we had to, and we protected the game."<\/p>\n

V'landys admitted the delay wasn't ideal, noting that under a best-case scenario de Belin's situation would have been resolved much earlier.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

"You have to remember we also had a pandemic in the middle of it, so COVID didn't exactly help the situation," he explained.<\/p>\n

"There was some challenges in the courts that delayed it as well, it was unfortunate."<\/p>\n

The return of de Belin comes as former St George Illawarra coach Paul McGregor concedes the turmoil surrounding the sexual assault charges likely cost him his job.<\/p>\n

McGregor was shown the door by the Dragons in 2020 after a horror run for the club.<\/p>\n

"I read somewhere a distracted team will never reach its potential and we were distracted the whole time," McGregor told News Corp.<\/p>\n

"There is no doubt about that.<\/p>\n

"Jack is the type of person that lights up a room. He is the energy.<\/p>\n

\"St<\/p>\n

"It is not an excuse but it is the truth."<\/p>\n

McGregor called for a change to the stand down policy, arguing the NRL should pay the salary of any player who is subject to a stand down order, freeing up salary cap space for the club.<\/p>\n

"You can't make decisions for clubs and penalise them for decisions they don't make, and that is what has happened in this case," he explained.<\/p>\n

"It was something that had never happened before yet they made a rule and the club paid the price."<\/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":"

NRL boss Peter V'landys is making no apologies for the fact Jack de Belin has been sidelined for more than two seasons, as the Dragons […]<\/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\/77060"}],"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=77060"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77062,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77060\/revisions\/77062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}