Roosters coach Trent Robinson is standing by prop Spencer Leniu, saying the player is not a racist.
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00:00 He's not racist. His use of language for me was on trial.
00:05 You know, if you think that this is a football issue, if you think this is, if anybody can stand
00:10 atop their mountain and look down on people and judge them for the way that they talk in society,
00:16 then, you know, a lot of people are doing that and that's where I have an issue. This is a
00:20 language issue. This is a common talk between people of often all ages but from a very young age,
00:33 in sport, in the playground, right through to people in their 20s and 30s use this language
00:39 often and it's not because they're racist or they're trying to put all the power there. It's
00:44 banter between guys and I'm not saying it's right. This is what's on trial. We need to change
00:49 the language in which we speak to each other. To call Spencer a racist is so far from the truth.
00:56 It is so far from the truth but is that language right? You can never use that
01:00 but is that happening on a daily basis? It is, you know, and that's, and so I'm not,
01:08 for me, I'm not here trying to judge anybody that had an opinion. The thing is, is I think you will
01:15 want sort of some, a bit of fireworks from me to make sure that it keeps going but the point is,
01:21 is what's going to come out of this? This needs to be a changing moment for language and the way that
01:27 people of the same class and the same community use this language and that can't happen. We had
01:35 different languages used 20, 30 years ago that we wouldn't even speak now and this needs to go there.
01:41 you
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