Last week, in an emotional 60 Minutes interview, former Newcastle Knight Alex McKinnon voiced his anger at the Storm‘s Cameron Smith for his on-field comments, after the tackle that left him a quadriplegic.
McKinnon said that he was angered by Smith’s remarks, and the fact that the skipper made no apparent attempt to visit him in hospital or contact him as he recovered from his injury.
Smith was reportedly furious that 60 Minutes did not offer him the right of reply, and though they said that they would have him on the show the following week, he turned them down.
When he captained the Maroons in the State Of Origin several days later, he refused to talk to anyone from Channel Nine, and has since remained quiet on the subject of McKinnon.
His only comment was made to a New Zealand journalist following the Storm’s Sunday loss to the Auckland Warriors, when he said that the “personal stuff going around at the moment” will be “handled privately.”
This morning, former Newcastle star Matthew Johns gave the Triple M Grill Team an update on the situation, saying that, to the best of his knowledge, the two are planning to meet privately and “bury the hatchet.”
Johns met with Smith in Brisbane, and said that McKinnon’s comment had “weighed heavily” on the 32-year-old and his family after 60 Minutes aired. “I’ve never seen a man so tired – physically and mentally just exhausted,” he said.
The two will catch up and talk the situation out away from the public eye. “There [don’t] need to be cameras there, or audio,” he said. “They will bury the hatchet, there’s no doubt about it. The sooner the two boys get to catch up, the better.”
via Fox Sports
Image via Channel Nine
