Souths undecided about appealing fine

South Sydney coach Michael Maguire says he’s playing no part in the NRL premiers’ decision whether or not to appeal the $20,000 fine for the club’s handling of the Arizona nightclub incident.

The Rabbitohs were hit with the breach notice on Monday after the NRL Integrity Unit completed its botched investigation into the arrest of John Sutton and Luke Burgess during Souths’ pre-season training trip to the USA in November.

Then-South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson was cleared of any wrongdoing, while neither Sutton nor Burgess were suspended over their roles in the off-field drama.

The integrity unit re-opened its investigation into the incident last month after crucial details were uncovered by the press.

But with his focus solely on preparing the premiers for their season opener against Brisbane on Thursday night, Maguire on Wednesday said he would leave it to higher powers whether or not Souths would challenge the fine.

“I’ve got a great group of people above me that make a lot of those decisions in that area,” he said.

“They’ll go through that thoroughly to work out the best path in which we’re going to go.

“At the moment, it’s going through a process with the club and we’ll decide about that later in the week.”

When pressed further, Maguire said: “I’m not going to touch on that. For me and our team, it’s about travelling up to the Broncos and performing the way we can”.

Broncos coach Wayne Bennett earlier on Wednesday said he’d lost all faith in the integrity unit after it did a U-turn on attempts to beef up powers by requiring players to hand over phone records on demand.

When told of Bennett’s comments, Maguire said: “Wayne’s obviously a big voice in the game, along with all of us coaches at some stage.

“But for myself personally, and the team, we’re looking forward to round one.”

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