Players boycott multicultural celebrations due to ongoing wage war as NRL opts not to introduce Pride Round in 2023

“We’ll deal with themed rounds throughout the season,” he said. “We don’t expect any changes. Our focus now is on the multicultural round and you will see how the other rounds develop as we move through the season.”

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Abdo threw his support behind Rabbitoh’s star Latrell Mitchell, who allegedly directed racist remarks against him during last week’s loss to the Panthers.

“There are outliers in society, people who say or do the wrong thing,” Abdo said.

“But that shouldn’t distract the vast majority from how they feel. The other point worth noting is that in such incidents one can judge the character of the people and the sport by how they rallied behind it. The way everyone gathered around Latrell, players from both sides, the stadium, the club, the NRL, the police, everyone worked really well together to defuse the situation.

“These are incidents we don’t want to see. One is one too many. But they don’t happen often in our sport, because of the nature of our sport, because of the nature of how inclusive we are. And it’s authentic and real and you can feel it on a Saturday morning from the grassroots level to the stands at NRL and NRLW games.”

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