NRL to crack down on bottle throwers
The NRL are awaiting a report from Mt Smart Stadium, but will have no hesitation banning anyone found guilty of throwing bottles at players in Friday night's NRL semi-final.
The New Zealand Warriors' 30-13 win over the Sydney Roosters was marred by allegations of bottles being thrown at Roosters players camped in their own in-goal.
NRL chief operating officer Graham Annesley, who was at the match, said he did not know what footage was available of the incident but warned of dire consequences for any guilty parties.
"We obviously frown upon any of those sorts of missile-throwing type incidents," Annesley said.
"Fortunately nobody was hit, we'll follow it up with the Stadium on Monday.
"If they've got any way of identifying those concerned then we haven't hesitated in the past to issue bans and we'll do the same in this case."
Roosters fullback Anthony Minichiello revealed one of the bottles just missed him as the side gathered in the in-goal area following Lance Hohaia's second try of the night just after halftime.
"One nearly got me actually and then another one I saw fly around the other side," Minichiello said.
"It missed me, but when you look at it, it's a full beer bottle, you go 'what's going on?'"
Roosters chief executive Brian Canavan said he was confident the Warriors and the NRL would do everything they could to find the culprits.
And he called for the NRL to ban anyone found guilty of throwing objects at players from attending games for life.
"I'm sure the NRL will be very diligent with finding these people," Canavan said.
"It wasn't good enough. It is disgraceful behaviour when fans resort to throwing things.
"Especially at players. They are the entertainers, they are the people they come to watch."
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