Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with professional footy players having lives outside of the game, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with them chucking the odd pineapple up the fruit machine if that’s what they’re keen to spend their cash on. But when you’re out chasing the feature on More Chilli until 11pm the night before getting absolutely obliterated in a cut-throat NRL Final, it doesn’t exactly give off the best look. The optics on it tend to be real fucken bad, in fact.
[jwplayer tZsxzVyR]
As it turns out, several Brisbane Broncos players were spotted at a pub in inner-Sydney this past Saturday night. The reports go that despite the fact they were not canning on, they still hung around until about 11pm before shuffling off.
The issue there? The very next day they all half-heartedly trudged out to play an NRL Elimination Final where they got horribly, disgustingly belted by Parramatta to the tune of FIFTY EIGHT TO ZERO.
Reports from various sources assert that David Fifita, Matt Gillet, Andrew McCullough, Payne Haas, Corey Oates, Anthony Milford, Joe Ofahengaue, and Gehamat Shibasaki were all milling around Harpoon Harry in Surry Hills, playing pokies until around 11pm when the group moved on, except Fifita who reportedly hung around and kept playing.
Worse still, it appears that the group at the pub were there without notifying Broncos officials, having broken a team curfew and snuck out of their hotel.
BRONCOS UPDATE: Brisbane hierarchy have confirmed several senior players broke camp to play pokies and have launched an investigation. Broncos will release a statement shortly. Players left the team hotel without the knowledge of coach Anthony Seibold
— Pete Badel (@badel_cmail) September 17, 2019
The group in question were among the worst offenders in Brisbane’s fairly effortless attempts at playing footy the next day, with Parramatta handing the club not only the biggest loss in NRL finals history, but the biggest loss in Broncos history full-stop.
The absolute scenes in all of this. Running a lobster or ten through a Queen of the Nile machine the night before getting pummelled so badly by the Parramatta Eels that it rewrites the history books.
Honestly, if you were gonna put that little effort into things you might as well have sunk a schooner or two while you were at it.
Lord knows Broncos fans need a drink now.
