allegedly delivered a nut shot on his legendary Storm skipper, Cam Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\nEarly in the second half of a game the Dragons would eventually win 34-14, Smith was rising to play the ball when Latimore appeared to, err, play at the ball of Smith — who immediately dropped to the turf in agony.<\/p>\n
The incident was then made infinitely worse when Dragons hooker Cam McInness, at dummy half, and noting Smith down, clutching his dusters, scooted out and over the line to score.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, the incident created widespread headlines, with the Melbourne skipper convinced the foul was deliberate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd mate, you have to pay for stuff like that,\u201d Big Nelson told us last week. \u201cWhat goes around comes around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet when asked about the wayward whack this week, Latimore had a different recollection entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cMate,\u201d he laughed initially, mounting a case, \u201cI was getting suffocated by Cam Smith\u2019s groin.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go back and look at the footage.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see Smith thrusting his groin into my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I threw an arm up in self-preservation. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe type of guy I am, I\u2019d never do anything like that deliberately. I was only trying to play the ball as quickly as I could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cameron Smith of the Storm receives attention from the trainer during the round nine NRL match between the St George Illawarra Dragons and the Melbourne Storm at UOW Jubilee Oval on May 6, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Kolbe\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
With the same speed, Latimore also responded to further allegations from Asofa-Solomona that, afterwards, he also went and awarded himself Smith\u2019s longtime nickname of GOAT \u2013 or Greatest Of All Time.<\/p>\n
While the now 39-year-old agrees that, yes, he did start carrying the GOAT moniker after that day, he stresses it certainly wasn\u2019t his doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe talk of me calling myself \u2018The Goat\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s bulls***,\u201d Latimore laughed. \u201cI never gave myself that name.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it was brought up after that game where Smith tried suffocating me with his groin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere trying to get him off, I flicked a hand up and, maybe, collected him.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the GOAT name, that was given to me by the guy who does the NRL Roast (Dean Messiter).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously got a strong following on socials, and it stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s no way I would ever give myself that nickname\u201d.<\/p>\n
So as for Big Nelson\u2019s suggestion you did?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw that mentioned last week, I f***ing laughed,\u201d Latimore continued. \u201cAnd I do need to correct the bloke because I absolutely didn\u2019t give myself that moniker.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure, sometimes I gee up.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr speak about myself in the third person.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I always knew exactly where I stood on the NRL food chain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeremy Latimore of the Dragons celebrates his opening try during the Round 16 NRL match between the St George Illawarra Dragons and Melbourne Storm at WIN Stadium in Wollongong, Thursday, July 4, 2019. (AAP Image\/Dean Lewins)Source: AAP<\/p>\n
So as for Big Nelson carrying a grudge?<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it\u2019s just a good reflection on me as a person,\u201d Latimore grinned. \u201cIt certainly doesn\u2019t seem like there\u2019s much you can scratch up.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I dunno.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven playing against each other, I think we only ever had the one small run in.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd look, I\u2019m pushing the memory here but I\u2019m pretty sure I got eye-poked and then, while still on the ground, (Storm winger) Suliasi Vunivalu gave me a good spray.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo then I was spraying Vunivalu.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he was back into me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we scored, so I gave him another spray. And that\u2019s when Big Nelson came in, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said something like \u2018I\u2019d heard you were a smartarse Latimore\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s about it, all fairly lighthearted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regarding the GOAT moniker, Latimore went on to explain that not only is \u2018Roasty\u2019 responsible \u2013 he even has one of the last boots he ever wore in the NRL to prove it.<\/p>\n
“It’s a worse Tim!” – Zerafa slams Tszyu | 03:33<\/p>\n
Asked to explain, the veteran of over 180 NRL games went on to say how after your last ever first grade appearance, the NRL takes one of your boots, and gold plates it — then presents it back to you on Grand Final day, as part of a tribute to retiring players.<\/p>\n
But as for his other boot?<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave that to Roasty,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s because he\u2019d told me how I was always one of his favourite players.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd look, maybe he was taking the p***. But we\u2019ve always got along well \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
And as for you and NAS?<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously when the fight was first announced, there were a lot of people doubting me,\u201d Latimore said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, yes, he has a reputation.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously he gave that bloke in Bali a hiding, and also gave Jarrod Wallace a bit of a touch up in their fight as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of hype.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul Gallen was previously the big dog in this space — generated plenty of eyeballs — and now Big Nelson is looking to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a big guy, big personality and controversy always seems to follow him around.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo hopefully now I can keep that going \u2026 and beat him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nelson Asofa-Solomona has been urged to quit the \u201cbulls***\u201d bad blood talk surrounding his professional boxing debut \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-390322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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