Will he stay or will he go? It's been the talk of the town this past week, Canberra Raiders forward John Bateman potentially seeking a more lucrative deal with a rival club.
But the Raiders refuse to be distracted by it. Jack Wighton said it's been business as usual on the training paddock as they focus on the NRL's return.
"He sent a little message but everything's been outside noise and everything seems normal here at the club.
"We're just going about training and he's going about his business and he's handling himself very well."
Bateman played a crucial role in Canberra's run to the 2019 Grand Final and he's reportedly using that to try and add $200 000 to his $600 000 salary.
Canberra management has told him though, they'll be hard pressed to get him that kind of pay increase and have allowed him to try and get that deal elsewhere.
"He loves the club so he'll make his own decision based on his family and his little girl and that's who he plays the game for as he's made obvious already.
"So we'll leave that up to him and we'll back him and every choice he makes and we'll back the club's choices," Wighton said.
"We all love Johnny and we love the club and it's just the way business has to be sometimes and I guess it's above our pay grade you know, it's something we can't worry about we've got to worry about playing football and trying to win games."
Trying to win games starts this Saturday for the Green Machine, when they travel to Melbourne to take on the Storm.
Canberra won the last two battles against Melbourne at AAMI Park and they hope to pick up where they left off.
"We always have confidence in yourself but we know it's going to be the toughest one out of all of them you know. Storm out of every team, they don't want to lose three games in a row to a team at all so they're going to come out firing."
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/canberra-raiders-not-distracted-by-john-bateman-drama/76ffe4ee-c1ad-45bf-bd52-a4a5f2bfae35
0 Comments