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Mal Meninga: Why I'm backing Slater in 'grubgate'
Mal Meninga • June 18th, 2025 2:56 pm
I don’t want to be called a grub, I want to be called a great player and I want to have the respect of those around me – particularly the opposition.
Grub is a pretty tough term to be honest with you because we all understand what that is in a derogatory way. Even though I played in an era when it was tough and it was man on man and you were taught to bite the bullet and just keep going, but it still hurts deep down.
If you’re not one to take it personally then you haven’t really got too many emotions in my mind.
I know what Billy is getting at and it is a personal attack. Billy played with Woodsy in the Australia team on tours and things. I get it and I understand it.
There is a responsibility. Billy said do you really want me to answer that – that’s where the media com into this, we’re all part of it.
To call someone a grub it is a personal attack, it is an attack on him as an individual. I’m in billy’s boat here. It does have an effect on people in different ways.
You don’t have to do that to attract attention in my opinion. Origin is a its own beast and its gone way outside of the game itself which is not where we want it to be.
We want the game to be the focal point at the standout.
A tiff between two people is not the way we want to talk about origin.
A tiff between two people is not the way we want to talk about origin.
