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John Folau exits the Waratahs in the wake of Israel's expulsion
By Online Editors
Israel Folau's brother has quit the NSW Waratahs - less than three weeks after the Wallabies superstar had his multi-million-dollar contract with Rugby Australia torn up.
Coach Daryl Gibson on Thursday said 24-year-old John Folau had been grappling with "divided loyalties" before being granted a release from the Waratahs.
The ordeal of seeing his brother sacked by Rugby Australia and the Waratahs for expressing his controversial religious beliefs on social media appears to have taken its toll on the young backline utility.
“We gave John some time off for leave and he has come back to us recently and asked for a release, which we’re happy to grant," Gibson said.
"John has been in a difficult position for the last wee while. He has got really divided loyalties to his family and his brother and then also to the team.
"He wanted to stress how much he enjoyed being with the team and what a difficult decision it was for him.”
The 24-year-old former Parramatta NRL player did not play a match for the Waratahs, being named on the bench but not getting on against the Sunwolves earlier this season.
That was as close as he came to making his Super Rugby debut, after playing three first-grade games for the Eels during a three-year stint at Parramatta from 2015-17.
Israel Folau is still considering his legal position amid reports he is also trying to resurrect his NRL career.
The dual international and Super Rugby's all-time leading try-scorer opted against appealing his "high-level" breach of RA's code of conduct, saying he had lost faith in the governing body's ability to treat him fairly and lawfully.
He may still pursue the matter in court, claiming unfair dismissal by RA.
Gibson said he was not sure whether John Folau would ever play rugby again.
“We can all understand the loyalty he has to his family and to his brother and totally respect that position,” Gibson said, while de clining to speculate on whether or not John decision to walk away from rugby was an act of solidarity to Israel.
- AAP
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Latest Comments
Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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