From Pulver
In essence Ewen said that he felt he was going to struggle to retain the level of respect from the playing group that he needed and his support staff in the Australian squad — really, in my part, because of the extraordinary character assassination that he has had to put up with over the past two weeks.
“I’m pretty disappointed with the Australian public in certain areas for how they’ve dealt with Ewen, and in fact how they’ve dealt with Di Patston. If I read one more article criticising those two … it would be extremely disappointing.”
Asked to clarify what he meant by “the Australian public”, Pulver replied: “I think I’m talking about the media primarily. What I’ve seen over the last two weeks of character assassination of Ewen McKenzie and all the commentary around Di Patston, I think has been extremely disappointing.
“Unfounded, unwanted and unfair, is how I would describe it and completely contrary to the core values of our game.”