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<\/p>\nThe Leicester Tigers boss was left seething ahead of his side’s match against Gloucester on Saturday<\/p>\n
Parling shoved and swore at Doyle ahead of the match(Image: TNT Sports)<\/p>\n
Leicester Tigers boss Geoff Parling has issued an apology after shoving and swearing at TV presenter Craig Doyle live on air before his side’s clash with Gloucester on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Parling was left seething at TNT Sports host Doyle and his colleague Liam MacDevitt ahead of the PREM Rugby fixture at Villa Park <\/a>as the pre-match segment ended in angry scenes.<\/p>\n Having joined the TNT Sports team, former footballer MacDevitt had been challenged by Doyle to kick for goal as part of his ‘initiation’ and he promptly gave it a go, despite Leicester’s players going through their warm-ups just behind the posts.<\/p>\n JOIN OUR WALES RUGBY FACEBOOK PAGE! Latest news, analysis and much more<\/a><\/p>\n That led a fuming Parling to stride over to the pair and – after Doyle asked him “Would you sign him, Geoff?” – he angrily confronted the presenter, seemingly telling him that his actions were “f***ing not on” before pushing him away.<\/p>\n Doyle then appeared to say sorry to the coach, before acknowledging that “Geoff [was] not happy about that” and apologising to viewers at home for the language used.<\/p>\n Footage of the incident soon went viral and, after seeing his side win the match 36-17 to lift the Slater Cup, Parling revealed he had received an apology from TNT Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n “The producer for TNT has just come to apologise to me,” he said. “They had something set up that wasn’t passed with anybody to our knowledge.<\/p>\n “I’m very wary that I need to protect my players and certainly balls flying towards our players that could go anywhere. When there’s an injury risk, obviously I’m not going to be happy.”<\/p>\n Now, however, the situation has taken a twist with the Leicester head coach issuing an apology of his own, as the PREM Rugby club released a statement on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n “Ahead of the Slater Cup game yesterday, an incident occured during the warm-up where TNT Sport presenters took a kick at posts under which Tigers players were warming up,” the statement read.<\/p>\n “Whilst this was contrary to standard practise and – as always – the well-being of those players under the posts was Geoff Parling’s<\/a> primary concern, Leicester Tigers and Geoff Parling accept that the response was unnecessary and would like to apologise unreservedly to everyone involved.”<\/p>\n “Those on the ground at Villa Park have also been offered private apologies from Geoff and the club, and Tigers appreciate the apologies for the kick taking place initially,” it continued. “Leicester Tigers hope that this matter can now be considered closed, and that attention be turned to the fantastic occasion that The Slater Cup provided once again.<\/p>\n As for Parling, he said: “I would like to apologise for the incident pre-game yesterday – it is important we stay a family focused game and it wasn\u2019t appropriate for viewers to see that.”<\/p>\n “We have a great product in the Gallagher PREM and I offer my thanks to Craig Doyle and everyone at TNT for continuing to innovate and think differently.<\/p>\n “After talking last night we\u2019ll make sure we are fully aligned behind new ideas, including when best to use them; and keep pushing our game to new audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow all of our channels to ensure you stay up to date with the latest Welsh rugby news. Sign up to our free daily newsletter here<\/a> and our WhatsApp channel here<\/a> for all the breaking news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Leicester Tigers boss was left seething ahead of his side’s match against Gloucester on Saturday Parling shoved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32009,49,46723,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-501996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-gloucester-rugby","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-leicester-tigers","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}