Wests Tigers chief executive officer Shane Richardson has defended the club’s decision to go ahead with a training session despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese holding a press conference at the same time.
Albanese was at Leichhardt Oval to announce a $40 million funding plan for the historic ground.
The Tigers were undergoing their captain’s run at the same time from the opposite side of the ground as coach Benji Marshall and Albanese both kicked off their press conferences at the same time.
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Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald, Richardson explained the club wasn’t made aware of the press conference until the night before.
”We’re a professional football team, we’ve lost our last nine games, nobody told us about this conference until late last night, but we need to train,” he said.
“Training was organised a week ago, and we want to make sure we win on Saturday. Interrupting our last training session is not the way to do it.
“We knew nothing about it. We would have organised things around it if we knew. We even had to bring one of our NRLW players from the office this morning to participate in the (photo opportunity).”
Balmain greats Wayne Pearce and Steve Roach both featured in the background of Albanese’s press conference, along with ARLC chairman Peter V’landys and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo.
Albanese made comment of the “soundtrack” behind him halfway through the event in reference to the Tigers training.
At Marshall’s press conference, as his side prepares to play the Titans at Leichhardt, Marshall spoke of the importance of the ground to the club.
”We’ve been asking for it a bit, haven’t we? It’s a credit to Richo (Richardson) and the club who have been pushing it for a bit but also for them to come to the party is outstanding,” he said.
“One of the great things about Leichardt is that when you play here you get a good crowd around and everyone gets around it, and we get to play here tomorrow and recreate that.”