Sydney Roosters five-eighth James Maloney's cheeky ploy gets the boot

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Sydney Roosters five-eighth James Maloney's cheeky ploy gets the boot

Phil Rothfield
The Daily Telegraph
September 04, 2013 12:00AM

THE NRL has banned a mischievous ploy by Origin star James Maloney to take his opponents out of play on the eve of the finals.

In recent weeks the Roosters five-eighth has been sprung throwing the footy boots of opposition players into the crowd.

It's a sneaky tactic Maloney has been getting away with, without even a caution from the referees.

Maloney did it to Blake Ferguson a month ago against the Raiders and last Sunday to Kevin Gordon in the Titans game.

Watch James Maloney's mischievous tactic in the video above

Maloney is a fierce competitor who will try anything to win the grand final this year at the Roosters.


James Maloney was responsible for Blake Ferguson's missing shoe (inset).

But the NRL says it's a tactic it will not tolerate for crowd and player safety reasons.

"Clearly an incident which involves any risk of injury to a fan or a player, such as a boot being thrown into the crowd, is of concern," said general manager of operations Nathan McGuirk.

"We have addressed the issue with the Roosters football department who assure us that it will not be recurring."

Roosters coach Trent Robinson has confirmed he will speak to his five-eighth about it.

"It's not a major issue but I've noticed him do it a couple of times," Robinson said.


Maloney disposes of the evidence after swiping Blake Ferguson's shoe.

"He's just a cheeky player and a great competitor who will look for any edge he can get.

"But he respects the laws of rugby league too and would never do anything to harm the game.

"We'll have a chat to him about it."

The ploy is an injury risk because his opponent often plays on in socks, rather than leave his team a man down in defence.

Gordon played on for more than five minutes in one boot on Sunday, before his trainer recovered the boot and could get to him.


... Ferguson shoeless 10 seconds later.

The NRL looked at the Maloney incidents on video after receiving footage from Fox Sports.

"It's difficult for match officials at times to be monitoring issues relating to boots in back play," McGuirk said.

"We generally will pick up issues such as this and deal with them in post-match reviews.

"I would be surprised though if we see something like this again from the Roosters."

Source: www.news.com.au/sport/nrl

Click the link to view the video of Maloney throwing boots into the crowd, cheeky bugga..