Warriors CEO Cameron George has defended accusations it took too long for the club and Marcelo Montoya to apologise for the winger’s homophobic slur in the 25-24 over the Cowboys on Friday night.
Montoya was caught by an on-field microphone making a derogatory comment to the Cowboys’ Kyle Feldt in the 60th minute and he was set to face a judicial hearing on Tuesday night.
But the first openly gay rugby league player Ian Roberts slammed the Warriors and NRL for taking two days to respond.
“I’m obviously disappointed about the incident, it’s saddening, I understand things are said in the heat of the moment, but there needed to be a quicker response from the clubs and the NRL,” Roberts told the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.
However, at a press conference at Mt Smart Stadium on Tuesday, George said the club and Montoya made an apology as soon as they were able to.
“I had heard through the grapevine that a spokesperson for the NRL said there would be an immediate investigation.
“No one had contacted me until Sunday afternoon from the NRL.
“I had spoken to staff and players on Saturday about it and Sunday due to process at the NRL’s end, I was held up from making a statement.
“Rewind to the Reece Walsh situation, it’s not our style,” he added, referring to when the star fullback fronted the media the day after his arrest for being in possession of cocaine last year.
“I would have been out on Saturday morning if I had been told by the NRL what they were investigating and how they were doing it.
“I wouldn’t have cared about their process, I would have made our statement to apologise, because Marcelo was ready to go in regards to that.
“A couple of weeks before that, when the floods hit Brisbane he went to a junior club off his own back and helped out cleaning it up.
“Just before Christmas he spent 24 hours on an exercise bike for mental health.
He’s that style of person, that’s his character and that’s why it’s so far out of character for him to do this.”
Warriors captain Tohu Harris said Montoya had spoke to him on the phone after the incident blew up.
“He called me the other day and he was very remorseful and apologetic,” Harris said.
“He couldn’t be more apologetic about how he let down the club, let down the players and Cam (George) and Robbo (Mark Robinson, Warriors owner).
“He almost couldn’t put it into words, you could hear it in his voice, how regretful he was of his actions.
“Because he’s not that type of person, he’ll take his shirt off and give it to someone if he could.
“As a club and players, we don’t condone that sort of behaviour or language and we know that he doesn’t either.
“It was a massive error of judgment from himself and one he wholeheartedly regrets.”
It is possible that the club could take further action towards Montoya, but that will depend on what the judiciary decides and George said he wanted that process to play out.
“I would never consider taking action before a process is completed,” George said.
“We own it, we don’t try to pass it on and we put the right penalties in place if the NRL haven’t taken the appropriate actions.
“So we’ll get through tonight. We support Marcelo as a person, he’s a terrific human being. He’s a guy that regrets the situation and he’s doing it tough about it at the moment as well.
“We want to support him and his family and tonight will be what it is and we’ll deal with it thereafter.”
