Top Newcastle Knights performer David Klemmer is on the verge of quitting the struggling Hunter club, sources close to the situation are saying, after under-fire coach Adam O’Brien dropped the former Blues prop ahead of the NRL’s next round and slapped him with a “please explain” breach notice.
The notice, The Sporting Base understands, is not to do with Klemmer’s eleventh-hour bid to join the finals-bound Parramatta Eels, but rather an on-field blowup he had with trainer Hayden Knowles in the team’s 14-point loss to the Bulldogs at home.
The clash—which saw Klemmer refuse to come from the field in the 71st minute—has also resulted in the star’s exclusion from O’Brien’s round 21 playing roster. The club maintains Klemmer’s refusal to be interchanged and his subsequent screams at Knowles on the topic are to blame, rather than his mooted Eels move.
“The Newcastle Knights have issued David Klemmer with a show-cause notice relating to on-field disciplinary matters in last Sunday’s match against Canterbury,” a Knights statement read.
“No further correspondence will be entered into until the show cause hearing process has been completed.”
Insiders are suggesting, however, that the club v. player rift is over the denied swap.
Even worse, News Corp is reporting a group of Knights players are “preparing to confront the club over the treatment of the prop” and will request their own “please explain” from Newcastle’s bosses.
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Klemmer has yet to train with the Knights squad this week.
The Newcastle prop has one year to go on his hefty $800,000 deal. He would have saved the Knights around $200,000 had he moved to the Parramatta Eels before the trade window closed on Monday. That saved cash would have climbed to $1,000,000 if the swap deal had been rubber-stamped into permanence too.
The 28-year-old was released from the final two years of his Canterbury-Bankstown deal in 2018 and started playing with the Knights in the following NRL season. Since his 2019 debut, the power forward has played 78 games for Newy team.
He has played 191 top-flight NRL games all up.
It is The Sporting Base’s understanding that Klemmer did not seriously consider the Eels deal, but is now less than sold on his Newcastle Knights future heading into the 2023 NRL season.
