The Sydney Roosters will be without new recruit Spencer Leniu for the next eight weeks after the prop was found guilty of contrary conduct after directing a racial slur at Brisbane’s Ezra Mam while playing in Las Vegas.
Leniu, who just recently joined the Roosters from the Panthers in the summer, was accompanied by Sydney’s legal team and head coach Trent Robinson when he was sentenced.
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The NRL judiciary panel unanimously agreed on the eight-game ban. The panel acknowledged that Leniu had since shown remorse in a press release shared by the club last week, but disagreed that Leniu was unaware the slur had racial meaning. Mam was not in attendance for the hearing, where the panel reviewed match footage.
Mam did share a written statement though, with the Broncos star saying he “was so angry” after Leniu called him a monkey that his “mind was no longer focused on the game.” The letter was read aloud by the NRL’s legal team during proceedings.
Leniu’s main argument revolved around the fact he “had no idea what that word meant to Ezra” but the NRL’s legal team was quick to point out the 23-year-old was already in his early teens when the same slur was directed at Adam Goodes in an AFL match in 2013. With that particular incident dominating sporting headlines in Australia for weeks and months after the fact, the team believed he would have been exposed to the issue and therefore knew its meaning.
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“I thought it was just one brown man sledging another brown man,” Leniu said in his apology. “This game appeared so fast. I’m so sorry that I used that word. I made him feel little.”
Leniu will next play against the New Zealand Warriors in May.
