{"id":657137,"date":"2026-05-08T06:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657137\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:24:08","slug":"wayne-bennett-slams-nrls-handling-of-latrell-mitchell-injury-news-reaction-south-sydney-rabbitohs-teams-late-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657137\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Bennett slams NRL\u2019s handling of Latrell Mitchell injury news, reaction, South Sydney Rabbitohs, teams, late mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Souths coach Wayne Bennett has taken umbrage to the NRL\u2019s handling of Latrell Mitchell\u2019s injury situation, after the competition\u2019s official website revealed the star centre wouldn\u2019t play against Cronulla this weekend before the Rabbitohs could announce it themselves.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the NRL Premiership LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mitchell suffered a bulging disc against the Knights last week but played through extraordinary pain according to Bennett.<\/p>\n

Mitchell was in pain all week and he was withdrawn from the Rabbitohs\u2019 side on Thursday. NRL.com was first to break the news with Souths caught off guard by this given they hadn\u2019t had a chance to release their own statement.<\/p>\n

This left Bennett unimpressed.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe NRL aren\u2019t great at holding secrets. It wasn\u2019t a secret either, but I think it\u2019s the responsibility of the club to nominate their players and whether they\u2019re in or out of the team. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an NRL decision,\u201d Bennett told reporters on Friday. <\/p>\n

When journalist Brent Read put to Bennett that the NRL perhaps wanted to get on the front foot to protect the game\u2019s integrity, the super coach bristled at that suggestion.<\/p>\n

“The most passionate player I’ve seen” | 01:14<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere was nothing about integrity that\u2019s been questioned there, I can tell you now. Surely the club has a right to tell their people or get ourselves sorted out before we\u2019re inundated with phone calls (from journalists) and the rest that goes with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the conversation went something like for us not to say anything when the decision was made that he wasn\u2019t playing \u2026 My staff member told me that the NRL said for us not to say anything at that time, so that was fine, but it was contrary to what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the club\u2019s prerogative to make that announcement. He\u2019s a big-name player as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t going to hold it back but I don\u2019t like the fact that you ring me up, someone else rings me up and we\u2019re not ready to release it and then you feel like you\u2019re letting everybody down then because it\u2019s already been released.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell will miss at least one game but Bennett suggested the superstar could miss next weekend\u2019s Magic Round clash against the Dolphins.<\/a><\/p>\n

Thankfully for Blues fans, Mitchell should be fine to play in the State of Origin opener on May 27.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe shouldn\u2019t be out for (Game 1). It\u2019s two and a half weeks away so he\u2019ll certainly be right by then,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Souths coach Wayne Bennett has taken umbrage to the NRL\u2019s handling of Latrell Mitchell\u2019s injury situation, after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,317448,26501,317763,259603,11096,317446,14373,317761,4552,4484,50348,26492,668,317447,4439,85,112667,59142,1651,317762],"class_list":["post-657137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bin-turns-game","tag-brent-read","tag-clubs-prerogative","tag-controversial-sin-bin","tag-daniel-nuttall","tag-hat-trick-hero-leads","tag-injury-news","tag-injury-situation","tag-jake-trbojevic","tag-kieran-foran","tag-name-player","tag-phone-calls","tag-press-conference","tag-sin-bin-turns","tag-south-sydney-rabbitohs","tag-sports","tag-staff-member","tag-star-centre","tag-wayne-bennett","tag-wayne-bennett-souths-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}