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Wallaby arrested - Rugby Australia release statement

Australia hooker Tolu Latu. Photo / Getty Images.

Rugby Australia have released a statement after The Sunday Telegraph in Australia are reported that Wallaby hooker Tolu Latu has been arrested for drink driving.

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According to reports Latu was found slumped over the wheel of a vehicle not far from Rugby Australia headquarters in Sydney at approximately 4.30am on Thursday.

Rugby Australia have realeased the following statement on the matter:

“Rugby Australia and New South Wales Rugby Union have been made aware today by the Daily Telegraph of an incident involving Wallabies and Waratahs hooker Tolu Latu.

“Rugby Australia’s Integrity Unit is working with the New South Wales Rugby Union to ascertain all of the facts.”

Latu was named on the bench for today’s Waratahs match with the Reds.

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In February Latu was hit with a six week ban for a dangerous play in his side’s tight 31-30 win over the Sunwolves in Tokyo.

The Wallabies hooker pleaded guilty for dangerous play in the 79th minute of that match, which left opposition loose forward Ed Quirk with an injured knee.

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This latest debacle comes fresh off the back of the Israel Folau saga, which appears to be drawing to a close.

RA’s statement on Latu comes just a day after Folau has had his four-year, $4 million contract with Rugby Australia terminated because of his controversial social media posts about gays and other so-called “sinners” he believes are destined for hell.

A three-person independent panel announced their verdict on Friday – 10 days after deciding Folau had committed a “high-level” breach of RA’s professional players’ code of conduct.

The Wallabies’ only three-times player of the year and Super Rugby’s all-time leading try-scorer has 72 hours to appeal and force the governing body into proceeding with a second code of conduct hearing.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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