That’s exactly what Leniu did to Thurston on Friday night but, in the eyes of many, it’s apparently play on.
The NRL says it needs a complaint from Thurston, or his employer Nine, to act. That’s garbage and a cop-out. There’s a ground manager, multiple witnesses, it’s on film – there’s any number of ways to investigate it without a formal complaint.
On top of that, many have suggested Thurston needs to sit back and cop it sweet because, basically, “s--- happens”.
It’s preposterous.
No-one working on the sideline on an NRL match should get a spray from a participant while sitting there.
If Leniu wanted to give Thurston a piece of his mind, he could have contacted him at any stage.
It was a year ago Thurston was asked what he thought of the eight-week suspension handed down to Leniue for calling the Broncos’ Ezra Mam a “monkey” on field in Las Vegas.
Thurston thought he deserved more.
And it’s six months since Mam himself was banned for nine weeks for driving unlicensed under the influence of drugs and causing a crash that hospitalised a child.
It was that penalty that many in the game, and obviously Leniu, thought was light. Leniu is angry Thurston wasn’t vocal about Mam’s behaviour and penalty, and it’s obviously been stewing away, turning into a seething anger.
And on the weekend, as the story gathered pace, came the whispered narrative that Leniu still thinks he did nothing wrong when he called Mam a monkey because worse was said to him by Mam, and that such phrases are common among some Pacific Islander players.
What’s obvious is that it has never been dealt with properly.
This is a personal issue between a player and a former champion turned commentator, and not a club issue as such for the Roosters.
It’s also a tricky and delicate issue of race and cultural differences between Indigenous and Pacific Islander players.
But, with all the welfare programs going on in the game now, the Roosters, or one of their employees, should have identified it as a major problem well before it hit the front and back pages by exploding so publicly during, and after, a prime-time NRL match.
Surely the club guided Leniu through the long suspension and helped him with his comprehension that, while he doesn’t understand it’s wrong to call a black man a monkey, 99.9% of the planet does.
But the real heart of this issue lies at the NRL’s feet.
There’s any number of occasions when the NRL investigates matters without needing an “official complaint”.
The NRL must be the last workplace in the nation where an accredited person performing their duties can cop an expletive-laden gobful from another person there in an official capacity and it’s all OK.
Memo NRL HQ: “It’s 2025.”
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He doesn’t deserve a suspension, or a big fine, but Leniu at least needs a letter of reprimand so the other 500 NRL players, and thousands of accredited officials – media included – know it’s simply not on.
That we can’t yell out “f” bombs and “c” bombs at people we don’t like on NRL grounds, otherwise it’ll be a free-for-all.
Other sports don’t tolerate it.
Like racing, for instance.
On April 1, politician and Australian Turf Club member Mark Latham, allegedly let fly with an expletive-laden spray at senior ATC official Steve McMahon. Latham hates the idea of selling Rosehill, and McMahon is behind the idea to sell it. When McMahon approached a table Latham was sitting at, Latham allegedly said: “Well you can f---off.”
Latham is now facing not one, but two separate investigations – one by the ATC and one by Racing NSW. Both bodies have employed independent investigators.
Interesting game rugby league.
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