SKY SPORTS pundit Jon Wilkin has given his response to the backlash generated by his comments on groundsmen and women given on Sky Sports’ The Bench podcast this week.
Wilkin said: “Groundsmen are so precious with their pitch. I walked across a corner of the pitch at Wigan last week, I’m in trainers and 95kg. The groundsman was scowling at me.
“You’ve got essentially 30 cows about to run on the pitch, what damage am I going to do? Why are they so protective of the pitches? You’ve got to be a weirdo to do it, they are all weird aren’t they? It’s psychopathic, you’ve got to be a psycho.
“Is it hard to be a groundsman?”
Those comments were not well received by the majority of the rugby league fraternity, with Leeds Rhinos and Hull KR groundsmen taking to X to announce their displeasure with Wilkin’s comments.
Now Wilkin himself has issued an apology following his comments yesterday.
Wilkin wrote alongside a backdrop of greenery: “I’m sorry for the words I used to describe groundkeepers on The Bench podcast this week. It was a light-hearted conversation and I genuinely didn’t mean to cause offence to anyone.”
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