All Black prop Neemia Tialata has lashed out at the media after he and winger Cory Jane posted comments on twitter, revealing they would not be in the All Blacks side to take on England ahead of the side being officially named.
Responding to a comment about the media, Tialata
(twitter name neyza3) tweeted: "yeah specially the person who wrote it. He's prob sitting in front of his computer back in Nz looking at datting sites".
Tialata also defended his tweets and said anyone who saw the training would have noticed that he and Jane (twitter name soup 15) would not be in the side.
"Good morning Twitter world. Yes I have been inform about me and soup with our tweets in the media again!Well to be honest it's no big secret".
Late last night NZ time, Tialata wrote: "ok im off to the gym!!! hope they write about this".
He also joked about the media attention: "I hope the media can publish this: I need someone to pay my phone bill please!!! Sponsors???"
Jane also responded with: "big story, well done media".
Graham Henry said he will not be sanctioning the two Wellington players.
"I will have a quiet reminder tomorrow but it won't be six of the cane," the former headmaster said.
"It's not a major thing, is it? I haven't lost any sleep over it. I saw the headline, shrugged my shoulders and got on with it," Henry said.
"I had to find out what bloody Twitter was, I thought he was the new five-eighth playing for England," he said.
Tialata has already had social networking issues this year, following comments he made about Wellington rugby on Facebook.
It was expected a period of non-tweeting will be imposed as punishment for the twitter twins.
The New Zealand pair are not the only sportsmen who have pre-empted a team announcement on twitter.
Australia cricketer Phillip Hughes got into hot water with team management after announcing on Twitter he'd been left out of the third Test of this year's Ashes series against England.
- NZHERALD STAFF, NEWSTALK ZB
