NRL enforcer Josh Papalii has forced an online troll to issue a grovelling apology in a recorded video while on his knees begging for forgiveness after the footy fan threatened to assault the girlfriend of Canberra teammate Tom Starling.
The Incident
The Canberra Raiders hooker, 27, was involved in a post-game push and shove with Wests Tigers winger Sunia Turuva on Thursday night at Leichhardt Oval, with the pair leaving their differences on the field. However, the drama continued off the field when Starling was targeted on social media.
Starling later shared the vile comments via an Instagram story with a key message: 'Say what you want about the players... (but) leave women out of it. Don't be this guy.' Among the comments was labelling Starling a 'white redneck' before the troll threatened to assault the footy star's partner.
Papalii's Intervention
Papalii, who did not feature against the Tigers due to injury, confronted the gutless troll and convinced him to get on his knees and apologise, which can be seen in an Instagram story shared by the footy star. After Papalii said he was going to contact police, the coward apologised profusely and begged the Samoan international not to take the matter further as he has a young son.
The troll has since deleted his Instagram account, and Daily Mail has chosen not to name him. A number of fellow NRL stars found the vision hilarious, including Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Kotoni Staggs, and Ezra Mam.
Coach's Reaction
Meanwhile, Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was seething at his team's error-riddled performance. The away side produced nine errors and completed 28 of 36 sets at 78 per cent in the six-tries-to-two defeat.
'They can book their end of season holidays a lot earlier if we don't start fixing our errors,' Stuart said. 'There's no excuse. We put ourselves in a position to win the game. You go back and have a look at the set of six before they scored each try, we made an error. So you give them field position, you give them more ball, it is not good enough. It's not a team thing, it's an individual thing, so the individual's got to be accountable for it.'
