Canberra Raiders prop Josh Papalii confronted an online troll who threatened to assault teammate Tom Starling’s girlfriend, compelling the individual to deliver a kneeling video apology.
Post-Game Incident Ignites Abuse
Raiders hooker Tom Starling, 27, exchanged pushes with Wests Tigers winger Sunia Turuva following Thursday’s match at Leichhardt Oval. The on-field tension resolved quickly, but Starling faced severe online backlash shortly after.
Starling posted the offensive messages on his Instagram story, stating, “Say what you want about the players… (but) leave women out of it. ‘Don’t be this guy.'” One comment branded him a “white redneck” and issued a direct threat against his partner.
Papalii Delivers Lesson to Harasser
Papalii, sidelined by injury and absent from the Tigers game, located the troll and issued a stern warning about police involvement. The individual pleaded for mercy, mentioning his young son, and agreed to record an apology on his knees.
Papalii shared the video on Instagram, where it drew laughs from NRL players including Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Kotoni Staggs, and Ezra Mam. The troll subsequently deleted his account.
Coach Criticizes Raiders’ Performance
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart lambasted his team’s sloppy play in the six-tries-to-two loss, noting nine errors and a 78 percent set completion rate from 36 attempts.
“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.”
