Cronulla skipper Paul Gallen has warned Lachlan Fitzgibbon to stick by the unspoken player's code of ''what happens on the field, stays on the field'' after he revealed his secrets on radio over the weekend.
The pair clashed when Gallen dropped the ball cold in the Sharks' final attacking opportunity to level the scores against Newcastle on Friday night, as Fitzgibbon led a sledging battle in response to Gallen's previous criticism of the club.
In 2017, the Sharks lock declared in an exclusive column for Sporting News that the Novocastrians would not be a title threat in the near future and Mitchell Pearce may regret his decision to move north.
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Fitzgibbon told Triple M in reply: ‘’I’ve been beat up by the Sharks too many times over my short career so to get one over him last night, I think a bit of emotion came out.
‘’I just said ‘we’re not boys anymore, we’re here to play’.
‘’It was a good change and we finally got one over him after getting bashed the last few years.’’
Gallen had no issues with Fitzgibbon's outburst, but cautioned him to be careful of what he says to the media.
‘’That’s part and parcel with the game,’’ Gallen told Channel Nine's 100% Footy.
‘’I honestly did not hear a word he said. There was a few people yelling and screaming. I never said a single word back. I just had my arms ready to pack the scrum.
‘’There’s times in a game of footy when you’ve made an error, you’ve just got to move on and that’s exactly what I’ve done. I copped my medicine and moved on.
‘’One thing I would say to him, a young bloke coming through, I just wouldn’t be spruiking the next day on radio what you said.
‘’What happens out there should stay out there. I’ll leave it out there. They got the win fair and square.’’
Gal responds to the Knights. 💥 #100PercentFooty #NRL pic.twitter.com/3WYcy1bmMl
— NRL on Nine (@NRLonNine) March 18, 2019
Gallen's rivalry with Nathan Brown was also reignited over the weekend when the Newcastle coach asked the opposition captain to reassess his condecending views of the club after they broke their eight-game losing streak.
''I'm probably more interested to see what Gal thinks of us now. Coming in with the blokes we have playing and where some of the younger players, who have been through a tough time against them, it will be interesting to see if he thinks we're an improved footy side,'' Brown said.
Gallen said bringing up the past was unnecessary.
‘’I’ve got no doubt they did use it (his comments) as motivation,’’ Gallen said.
‘’I wasn’t offended by it or anything like that, but I just knew straight away it was going to turn into Paul Gallen v Nathan Brown – war of words.
‘’I just didn’t think it needed to be done. I didn’t think he needed to bring me into it.
‘’The comments weren’t over the top or disrespectful and neither was my reply. I just simply said it surprised me that he did it.’’
