- Footy star Josh Papalii provided a life lesson to online troll
NRL enforcer Josh Papalii has forced an online troll to issue a grovelling apology – in a recorded video while on his knees begging for forgiveness – after the footy ‘fan’ threatened to assault the girlfriend of Canberra teammate Tom Starling.
The Canberra Raiders hooker, 27, was involved in a post-game push and shove with Wests Tigers winger Sunia Turuva on Thursday night at Leichhardt Oval, with the pair leaving their differences on the field.
Starling was then targeted on social media – and later shared the vile comments via an Instagram story with a key message.
‘Say what you want about the players…(but) leave women out of it,’ he said.
‘Don’t be this guy.’
Among the vile comments was labelling Starling a ‘white redneck’ before the troll said he would assault the footy star’s partner.
NRL enforcer Josh Papalii has forced an online troll to issue a grovelling apology in video form after the footy ‘fan’ threatened to assault the girlfriend of Canberra teammate Tom Starling
The Canberra Raiders hooker (pictured right, celebrating a try) was involved in a post-game push and shove with Wests Tigers winger Sunia Turuva on Thursday night at Leichhardt Oval
Starling was then targeted on social media by the troll – and later shared the vile comments via an Instagram story (pictured)
After confronting the gutless troll, Raiders teammate Papalii convinced him to get on his knees and apologise – which can be seen in an Instagram story shared by the footy star
Papalii – who didn’t feature against the Tigers due to injury – then provided a life lesson for the gutless troll, who has since deleted his Instagram account.
Daily Mail has chosen not to name the troll.
After Papalii said he was going to contact police, the coward in question apologised profusely, and begged the Samoan international not to take the matter further as he ‘has a young son.’
The NRL veteran then convinced the troll to get on his knees and apologise via video – which can be seen in an Instagram story shared by Papalii.
A number of fellow NRL stars found the vision hilarious, including the likes of Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Kotoni Staggs and Ezra Mam.
Meanwhile, Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was seething at his team’s error-riddled performance.
The away side produced nine errors and completed 28 of 36 sets at 78 per cent in the six-tries-to-two defeat.
‘They can book their end of season holidays a lot earlier if we don’t start fixing our errors,’ Stuart said.
‘There’s no excuse. We put ourselves in a position to win the game.
‘You go back and have a look at the set of six before they scored each try, we made an error. So you give them field position, you give them more ball, it is not good enough.
‘It’s not a team thing, it’s an individual thing, so the individual’s got to be accountable for it.’
