CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The NRL has been dealt its first off-field scandal Las Vegas, as the second year of this highly risky overseas promotional experiment gets underway.
The current arrangement between the NRL and the Nevada Tourism Board has locked in four years worth of Vegas Round, and to not have a scandal until the second year is very, very impressive work from the wildest sporting code in Australian history.
Canberra Raiders forwards Morgan Smithies and Hudson Young have fronted the media to own up to their actions after a drunken melee in the hotel on the first night in Sin City.
The two players apologised for their brouhaha, and explained a hotel mix-up left one of them without a room, and drunkenly fighting each other for a bed.
The two players fronted the media today to apologise for their brouhaha night out, when a hotel mix-up left one of them without a room, and drunkenly fighting each other for a bed.
Luckily for both players. The only people involved in the NRL who were not also hungover was Channel Nine sports reporter Danny Weidler, one of the rare rugby league journalists who is willing to listen to both sides of the story before launching a character assassination.
It seems that eery other staff member, physio, coach, broadcaster, administrator, politician and player were equally pissed on the first night of the 2025 Vegas trip, and thanking their lucky stars that it wasn’t them that ended up in a drunken brawl over nothing.
It is believed that the incident caused panic amongst the gun-shy Las Vegas hotel staff, who assumed one of the men was armed and dangerous, only to learn that he was bashing his teammate over the head with an inflatable baseball bat that he bought from a tourist gift shop.
The NRL has ruled that the players will not be disciplined for their stupidity, arguing that the vicious spray they would have received from their mercilessly hungover and extremely hot-headed Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart would most certainly be enough punishment.
Both Smithies and Young are set to be named to face the Warriors in the NRL season opener at Allegiant Stadium this weekend. And everyone will forget this ever happened because it could have been much, much worse
