Latest news with #Latrell
Herald Sun
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Herald Sun
‘Can't let him land first': Host lifts lid on explosive Latrell exchange
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News. Braith Anasta has revealed more details surrounding his fiery dust-up with Latrell Mitchell outside a Sydney restaurant in 2024. The 43-year-old was asked about the exchange on Thursday's Off the Record podcast with The Australian's Andrew Webster and The Daily Telegraph's Buzz Rothfield. FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every game of every round in the 2025 NRL Telstra Premiership, LIVE with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. The incident unfolded in Surry Hills while both parties were separately out for dinner at restaurant Chin Chin in May last year. Mitchell had reportedly taken issue with perceived personal attacks by Anasta and approached him inside the restaurant before asking him to step outside. While the exchange never turned physical, Anasta said to he had fears it could have turned nasty. Watch Anasta lift the lid on the explosive exchange in the video player above 'I was thinking in my head, I can't let him land the first one because I'll be gone, because he's a beast,' Anasta said on the Off The Record podcast. 'I'd be lying if I said at some point, I didn't think it might happen. I can understand what he was going through and I can understand how frustrating it is when people have an opinion and you just want to play footy. 'He could have easily called me. He could have easily (talked to me) and I would have spoken to him about it.' Anasta said he thought the confrontation might turn physical. Credit: Off The Record podcast. The incident quickly found its way online with Anasta left disappointed with how Mitchell's camp leaked the story. 'That was another DW (Danny Weidler) stitch up,' he said. Buzz added: 'He (Latrell) leaked his version of it.' Anasta replied: 'Very quickly mind you.' The NRL 360 host then went into further detail on how the whole night played out but clarified he and Latrell are now on good terms. 'Okay, let me get something clear here – before I tell it, me and Latrell are fine,' he said. 'It's not about putting sh*t on him. I don't want that. But what actually happened was, I finished NRL360 and … by Wednesday night, I just want to have a beer, and have something to eat and just relax. 'So, I've gone to Chin Chin's to meet someone there. I hadn't even ordered. I had my back to the restaurant. So I couldn't see anything other than who I was having dinner with. 'Anyway, I hadn't even ordered a drink and I get this tap on my shoulder. I look over my shoulder and it's Latrell. I coached Latrell in the (under) 20s, always had a good relationship with him, and I didn't think anything of it. Braith says he was caught off guard by the confrontation. Credit: Off The Record podcast. Latrell wasn't happy with the NRL 360 host and his constant criticism. (Photo by) 'He goes, 'no, no, no, no. I'm sick of you having a crack at me on 360, yada, yada, yada'. I'm thinking, is he joking here, or is he serious? 'And he goes, let's go outside. By that point, people are looking at us, right? It's the middle of Chin Chin's. It's a busy night. I thought, I need to de-escalate this, or at the very least, I need to get this out of this restaurant, right? 'We go out the front and he just lays, he lays into me, right? He's standing over the top of me and he's having his whack. 'I'm like, mate, okay, slow down. Because there was nothing making sense. It was just abuse. I said, 'mate, what am I doing that isn't right? Is there something that I'm wrong with? Can you just explain to me what you're angry with?' 'They were coming last at the time. I don't know if it was a week or two before, but I'd shown some vision of him at fullback. 'I watch every game of every player … and there were just a few instances where I thought he could be better. 'In that instant, he was over the top of me. I didn't back down at all. I gave as good as I got.' The criticism from Anasta came as the Rabbitohs slumped to to last place on the ladder at the end of round 9, 2024. At the time Anasta and fellow NRL 360 panel members raised questions about Mitchell's place in the team and whether the club should shift him away from the fullback position. Anasta had pointed out that the then 26-year-old Mitchell struggles with defensive positioning as a fullback. 'You look at the great fullbacks in our game and they're there before the play is there. They pre-empt it, they are moving before the ball goes, they are on the bike,' Anasta said. 'He gets caught out a lot in defence, he's very rarely in the frame at the last second when there's a try or when he's got an opportunity to save a try. 'That's where he needs to improve on. That comes down to fitness too Gordie (Gordon Tallis) and comes down to being one of those high energy fullbacks. He plays differently.' Mitchell has turned his form around in 2025 with the fullback staring for the Rabbitohs as well as producing jaw-dropping feats for the NSW Blues in the State of Origin opener. Fair to say there won't be any restaurant confrontations coming if he keeps his stellar play up. Originally published as 'Can't let him land first': Host lifts lid on explosive Latrell exchange
Sydney Morning Herald
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
Why silent Latrell Mitchell is still league's loudest voice
Latrell Mitchell's former coach Jason Demetriou says it as well as anybody. 'When Latrell speaks the narrative doesn't always go the direction he wants. The narrative can go anywhere because he's either loved or he's not liked.' For nine months and counting, the NRL's most intriguing figure has kept his counsel and kept the quotes to himself. Yet Mitchell is still rugby league's biggest star and accordingly, the man rugby league media flocks to most. Even when he won't talk. Shots of him playing golf in the rain and his Instagram account - endorsing South Sydney's social media campaign to ditch Accor Stadium for Allianz - have counted as Latrell news this week from NSW Origin camp. Along with updates that Latrell still ain't talking. And conjecture about whether he should be. It hasn't always been this way. More just Mitchell's latest wrestle in his complicated relationship with the fourth estate, not to mention his place in the rugby league ecosystem. Now in his tenth season of first-grade, Mitchell has occupied rare air for years as far as newsworthiness goes. No-one in rugby league compares. For what he does on the field that no-one else can. And what he says off the field that no-one else will. Since the internet came into being, only Jarryd Hayne has broken it like Mitchell in this game. Though you suspect Andrew Johns would have rivalled them if his career - mercifully for the Eighth Immortal - hadn't just missed the rise of social media. Loading Brisbane's enigmatic Reece Walsh might still match Mitchell some day, though more headlines are the last thing he or the Broncos need. Nick Kyrgios is probably the only Australian athlete who trumps South Sydney's superstar in turning the heads of Sydney-based editors and TV producers chasing clicks, comments and views. Mitchell's lasting impact on his Indigenous people will always, rightly, leave all that in the shade. I still recall standing in the SCG sheds in 2019, when he was just 22 and still a Rooster, as he addressed the torrent of racial abuse he was receiving on social media for the first time. I asked Mitchell if he truly grasped the pile-on coming his way. 'I don't care. Everything that is said about Aboriginal people really affects me,' was his simple, lasting reply. On Indigenous issues and representation, no voice has rung louder or longer than Mitchell's in Australian sport since. For a while afterwards, Mitchell revelled in the lighter side of breaking the world wide web too. When the Rabbitohs flew him to Philadelphia to work with reconditioning guru Bill Knowles in 2022, Mitchell returned with his hamstrings in order and a new outlook on his rugby league life. 'I've been having fun, that's always been me, I've just been perceived as someone else,' Mitchell told colleague Christian Nicolussi during a mid-season South Sydney media day, conducting no less than a dozen interviews in the Redfern Oval stands. 'I've done it all my life, I've talked a big game but always backed it up. 'I think a lot more players need to be outspoken and confident in themselves, and understand the power you have in this game… In the US they are funny, and I took a lot out of the way they talk. 'They know the power they have. We need to start understanding that.' Good times for all. Because Mitchell did back himself up with big game after big game in a career-best run. And delivered a slew of headline-worthy quotes to boot. He declared 'that NSW jersey is mine' after terrorising incumbent Blues centre Matt Burton one Friday night, laughed off accusations of lying down to draw a penalty with ' call me Trell Milk ' and 'used [the media] to my advantage and the Roosters took the bait' when tensions were at their highest against his former club and Mitchell was being booed relentlessly. Two years on, Mitchell understands the power he also wields in not speaking. After the most tumultuous period of his career, when he briefly considered walking away from the game and Souths pondered similarly uncomfortable questions about his future at the club, Mitchell needed Wayne Bennett like never before. Forget the side-mouth, single word answers and cranky old Wayne routine. The 75-year-old uses the media to his advantage better than anyone. Bennett's return to the Rabbitohs coincided with Mitchell needing to put his head down. Needing to repay the club for a hellish campaign that ended with a foot injury, one-game ban and $40,000 in NRL and South Sydney fines (with a further $80,000 fine suspended) for the photos of him standing over a white substance in a Dubbo hotel room. The Mitchell narrative of last year - which also included his involvement in the Spencer Leniu-Ezra Mam racism saga, an expletive-laden Triple M interview and suspension for belting Shaun Johnson - was wilder than ever as it grew untenable. Nine months of no comment is Mitchell, with South Sydney's backing, taking charge of the narrative and letting 'his footy do the talking' - one of his favourite refrains over the years. Nine months of no comment also leaves that potentially career-defining drama in Dubbo hanging in the air though. It remains the reference point for any reporter worth their salt because Mitchell has never addressed it himself. In reality, most fans don't care. His NSW teammates certainly don't. Not when the 27-year-old can win games like no-one else - with frosty 49-metre field goals in driving rain, and clutch cut-out passes few have the temerity to even attempt, let alone pull off. Where Mitchell's self-imposed, Rabbitohs-endorsed media ban gets especially intriguing is Origin, where he is the single most magnetic, game-breaking player in a contest full of them. And where broadcasters Nine - publishers of this masthead - pay through the nose for the NRL's premium product, with all the trimmings, unrivalled player and coach access that money buys. The only shame of Mitchell's NSW career is that he's only featured in eight of the 21 matches played since his 2018 debut. The only other shame of Mitchell's NSW career is a regularly rocky relationship with Blues hierarchy. The last time Mitchell truly spoke before his triumphant Origin return at the MCG, in an enthralling two-part fireside chat with Michael Chammas (conducted on an anonymous park bench in southern Sydney), he voiced publicly what has been said privately for years. 'There was a lot of doubt with NSW because I've never been looked after,' Mitchell said. 'I've been the scapegoat. I don't want to go into this camp being the scapegoat if they lose.' Much of Mitchell's ill-will stemmed from his 2019 axing by then-coach Brad Fittler when he went missing at Suncorp Stadium. And belief his 2023 calf injuries stemmed from mismanagement in NSW camp, prompting South Sydney's physios to oversee fitness tests in conjunction with Blues staff. Last year NSW coach Michael Maguire made a point of setting Mitchell at ease and diverting attention from his star's Origin return with his uncharacteristic 'glass houses' remark, dominating the pre-game build-up with headlines of his own. Loading Mitchell promptly shot the MCG lights out for his coach, teammates and state. Any thought the Blues might push Mitchell to break his media ban this time round was never getting off the ground. South Sydney have been telling reporters all year to try their luck, ask for a comment or two, in 2026. Again, the reality is fans don't care. And the media, both in rugby league and wider still, will make do. Whatever Mitchell does throughout the build-up, never mind the actual 80 minutes of Origin I, is like catnip in a never-sleeping, endlessly clicking, scrolling and commenting landscape anyway. Even if rugby league's human headline refuses to speak.
The Age
23-05-2025
- Sport
- The Age
Why silent Latrell Mitchell is still league's loudest voice
Latrell Mitchell's former coach Jason Demetriou says it as well as anybody. 'When Latrell speaks the narrative doesn't always go the direction he wants. The narrative can go anywhere because he's either loved or he's not liked.' For nine months and counting, the NRL's most intriguing figure has kept his counsel and kept the quotes to himself. Yet Mitchell is still rugby league's biggest star and accordingly, the man rugby league media flocks to most. Even when he won't talk. Shots of him playing golf in the rain and his Instagram account - endorsing South Sydney's social media campaign to ditch Accor Stadium for Allianz - have counted as Latrell news this week from NSW Origin camp. Along with updates that Latrell still ain't talking. And conjecture about whether he should be. It hasn't always been this way. More just Mitchell's latest wrestle in his complicated relationship with the fourth estate, not to mention his place in the rugby league ecosystem. Now in his tenth season of first-grade, Mitchell has occupied rare air for years as far as newsworthiness goes. No-one in rugby league compares. For what he does on the field that no-one else can. And what he says off the field that no-one else will. Since the internet came into being, only Jarryd Hayne has broken it like Mitchell in this game. Though you suspect Andrew Johns would have rivalled them if his career - mercifully for the Eighth Immortal - hadn't just missed the rise of social media. Loading Brisbane's enigmatic Reece Walsh might still match Mitchell some day, though more headlines are the last thing he or the Broncos need. Nick Kyrgios is probably the only Australian athlete who trumps South Sydney's superstar in turning the heads of Sydney-based editors and TV producers chasing clicks, comments and views. Mitchell's lasting impact on his Indigenous people will always, rightly, leave all that in the shade. I still recall standing in the SCG sheds in 2019, when he was just 22 and still a Rooster, as he addressed the torrent of racial abuse he was receiving on social media for the first time. I asked Mitchell if he truly grasped the pile-on coming his way. 'I don't care. Everything that is said about Aboriginal people really affects me,' was his simple, lasting reply. On Indigenous issues and representation, no voice has rung louder or longer than Mitchell's in Australian sport since. For a while afterwards, Mitchell revelled in the lighter side of breaking the world wide web too. When the Rabbitohs flew him to Philadelphia to work with reconditioning guru Bill Knowles in 2022, Mitchell returned with his hamstrings in order and a new outlook on his rugby league life. 'I've been having fun, that's always been me, I've just been perceived as someone else,' Mitchell told colleague Christian Nicolussi during a mid-season South Sydney media day, conducting no less than a dozen interviews in the Redfern Oval stands. 'I've done it all my life, I've talked a big game but always backed it up. 'I think a lot more players need to be outspoken and confident in themselves, and understand the power you have in this game… In the US they are funny, and I took a lot out of the way they talk. 'They know the power they have. We need to start understanding that.' Good times for all. Because Mitchell did back himself up with big game after big game in a career-best run. And delivered a slew of headline-worthy quotes to boot. He declared 'that NSW jersey is mine' after terrorising incumbent Blues centre Matt Burton one Friday night, laughed off accusations of lying down to draw a penalty with ' call me Trell Milk ' and 'used [the media] to my advantage and the Roosters took the bait' when tensions were at their highest against his former club and Mitchell was being booed relentlessly. Two years on, Mitchell understands the power he also wields in not speaking. After the most tumultuous period of his career, when he briefly considered walking away from the game and Souths pondered similarly uncomfortable questions about his future at the club, Mitchell needed Wayne Bennett like never before. Forget the side-mouth, single word answers and cranky old Wayne routine. The 75-year-old uses the media to his advantage better than anyone. Bennett's return to the Rabbitohs coincided with Mitchell needing to put his head down. Needing to repay the club for a hellish campaign that ended with a foot injury, one-game ban and $40,000 in NRL and South Sydney fines (with a further $80,000 fine suspended) for the photos of him standing over a white substance in a Dubbo hotel room. The Mitchell narrative of last year - which also included his involvement in the Spencer Leniu-Ezra Mam racism saga, an expletive-laden Triple M interview and suspension for belting Shaun Johnson - was wilder than ever as it grew untenable. Nine months of no comment is Mitchell, with South Sydney's backing, taking charge of the narrative and letting 'his footy do the talking' - one of his favourite refrains over the years. Nine months of no comment also leaves that potentially career-defining drama in Dubbo hanging in the air though. It remains the reference point for any reporter worth their salt because Mitchell has never addressed it himself. In reality, most fans don't care. His NSW teammates certainly don't. Not when the 27-year-old can win games like no-one else - with frosty 49-metre field goals in driving rain, and clutch cut-out passes few have the temerity to even attempt, let alone pull off. Where Mitchell's self-imposed, Rabbitohs-endorsed media ban gets especially intriguing is Origin, where he is the single most magnetic, game-breaking player in a contest full of them. And where broadcasters Nine - publishers of this masthead - pay through the nose for the NRL's premium product, with all the trimmings, unrivalled player and coach access that money buys. The only shame of Mitchell's NSW career is that he's only featured in eight of the 21 matches played since his 2018 debut. The only other shame of Mitchell's NSW career is a regularly rocky relationship with Blues hierarchy. The last time Mitchell truly spoke before his triumphant Origin return at the MCG, in an enthralling two-part fireside chat with Michael Chammas (conducted on an anonymous park bench in southern Sydney), he voiced publicly what has been said privately for years. 'There was a lot of doubt with NSW because I've never been looked after,' Mitchell said. 'I've been the scapegoat. I don't want to go into this camp being the scapegoat if they lose.' Much of Mitchell's ill-will stemmed from his 2019 axing by then-coach Brad Fittler when he went missing at Suncorp Stadium. And belief his 2023 calf injuries stemmed from mismanagement in NSW camp, prompting South Sydney's physios to oversee fitness tests in conjunction with Blues staff. Last year NSW coach Michael Maguire made a point of setting Mitchell at ease and diverting attention from his star's Origin return with his uncharacteristic 'glass houses' remark, dominating the pre-game build-up with headlines of his own. Loading Mitchell promptly shot the MCG lights out for his coach, teammates and state. Any thought the Blues might push Mitchell to break his media ban this time round was never getting off the ground. South Sydney have been telling reporters all year to try their luck, ask for a comment or two, in 2026. Again, the reality is fans don't care. And the media, both in rugby league and wider still, will make do. Whatever Mitchell does throughout the build-up, never mind the actual 80 minutes of Origin I, is like catnip in a never-sleeping, endlessly clicking, scrolling and commenting landscape anyway. Even if rugby league's human headline refuses to speak.
The Age
10-05-2025
- Sport
- The Age
‘If Latrell's fit ...': Daley gives big clue about Mitchell's Blues return
NSW coach Laurie Daley has given his strongest indication yet that Latrell Mitchell is on track to return to the Origin arena, declaring: 'If Latrell is fit, he's going to be hard to leave out.' Mitchell was the star for South Sydney on Friday night when he nailed a 49-metre two-point field goal against the Broncos, scored a try and came up with two stunning try-saving tackles, on Broncos giant Payne Haas and flyer Deine Mariner. Souths and former Queensland coach Wayne Bennett was bemused by suggestions Mitchell was not a certainty to play for the Blues, saying: 'I can tell you everyone in Queensland will be happy if he doesn't play for NSW.' Mitchell is a front-runner for the left centre spot when the Origin series kicks off at Suncorp Stadium on May 28. Canterbury's Stephen Crichton looms as the favourite for right centre, but Daley also has Manly's Tom Trbojevic and Newcastle's Bradman Best as options. 'Watching Friday night, you just know Latrell is built for moments, and when big moments roll around, he wants the ball in his hands,' Daley said on Saturday. 'That's the style of player he is. He'll always be that bloke who wants to take the shot, or own the moment. That's what makes him so good. 'You could tell from his first carry against the Broncos that he was up for a game. He was great. That's exactly what you want from $1 million players. They win you games – that's why they're paid good money.' Australian cricket legend Steve Waugh made a cameo at South Sydney training on Tuesday after being invited by Bennett, and said that while most of his time was spent catching up with the coach, it was easy to see what kind of impact Mitchell had on the playing group. Waugh was a Wests Magpies fan, then followed Canterbury, and has since befriended Bennett and Broncos coach Michael Maguire.
Sydney Morning Herald
10-05-2025
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘If Latrell's fit ...': Daley gives big clue about Mitchell's Blues return
NSW coach Laurie Daley has given his strongest indication yet that Latrell Mitchell is on track to return to the Origin arena, declaring: 'If Latrell is fit, he's going to be hard to leave out.' Mitchell was the star for South Sydney on Friday night when he nailed a 49-metre two-point field goal against the Broncos, scored a try and came up with two stunning try-saving tackles, on Broncos giant Payne Haas and flyer Deine Mariner. Souths and former Queensland coach Wayne Bennett was bemused by suggestions Mitchell was not a certainty to play for the Blues, saying: 'I can tell you everyone in Queensland will be happy if he doesn't play for NSW.' Mitchell is a front-runner for the left centre spot when the Origin series kicks off at Suncorp Stadium on May 28. Canterbury's Stephen Crichton looms as the favourite for right centre, but Daley also has Manly's Tom Trbojevic and Newcastle's Bradman Best as options. 'Watching Friday night, you just know Latrell is built for moments, and when big moments roll around, he wants the ball in his hands,' Daley said on Saturday. 'That's the style of player he is. He'll always be that bloke who wants to take the shot, or own the moment. That's what makes him so good. 'You could tell from his first carry against the Broncos that he was up for a game. He was great. That's exactly what you want from $1 million players. They win you games – that's why they're paid good money.' Australian cricket legend Steve Waugh made a cameo at South Sydney training on Tuesday after being invited by Bennett, and said that while most of his time was spent catching up with the coach, it was easy to see what kind of impact Mitchell had on the playing group. Waugh was a Wests Magpies fan, then followed Canterbury, and has since befriended Bennett and Broncos coach Michael Maguire.
