“I don’t think that it’s legitimate”: Kemp questions mass NRL All Star withdrawals

Former New Zealand Warriors coach Tony Kemp has questioned the legitimacy of several Indigenous and Māori players’ excuses for pulling out of the looming All Stars clash.

Six key Māori representatives have already pulled out of the match including Storm giant Nelson Asofa-Solomona (dog bite), Joseph Manu (facial fracture) and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak (hamstring) while four Indigenous players have also withdrawn.

With ongoing CBA issues still hovering over all NRL players, Kemp believes there may be more to the story than the excuses they have provided.

“I don’t think that it’s legitimate,” Kemp told SENZ Breakfast.

“What people have forgotten (is) players have only been back since the Christmas break, a lot of them, because they’ve been at the World Cup.

“It’s really sad … you finally get this game to New Zealand, so they go, ‘Right, because of what the Warriors have done over the last three years we’re going to bring a game to New Zealand. We’re going to bring the All Stars game (to NZ).’

“Which is a great concept, they’ve got that right, great concept and they’re going to bring it to New Zealand and then they don’t go in and sort the CBA out.”

Kemp believes clubs may be piling pressure on the players to pull out of the match with NRL trials and the season opener fast approaching.

“I don’t think it’s just because players don’t want to come here,” Kemp added.

“I think that clubs are saying, ‘Well you’re not coming here because there’s insurance problems, there’s CBA issues, we’re not going to risk you, we need you for the start of the season, you haven’t been training since after Christmas and you’re not ready to go out there and play.’

“The sad thing about that is we’ve got this wonderful game and we’re not going to have the best players to look at.

“We’re not going to have the best Indigenous stars and we already know that we’ve got close to 10 of our first choice Māori boys not playing, so now it’s becoming a bit of a reserve grade match.”

Indigenous All Stars Latrell Mitchell and Jack Wighton are also unlikely to participate in the match after they were arrested on Saturday night for an alleged nightclub scuffle.

Both sides have recruited additional players to represent their cultures, with the game set to take place on February 11.