Storm's Asofa-Solomona vax deadline looms
Nelson Asofa-Solomona has until the end of the week to budge from his anti-vaccination position, with Melbourne still hopeful the representative prop will get the jab so he can join the NRL team's pre-season training.
Asofa-Solomona is the sole Storm player resisting COVID-19 vaccination.
The NRL revealed on Tuesday that there is between 20 and 24 players across the competition yet to be vaccinated.
Queensland Health on Tuesday morning joined its Victorian counterpart in announcing that from December 17 only fully vaccinated people can enter sporting stadiums.
In Victoria it's already mandated professional athletes must be vaccinated to attend their workplace.
That means unvaccinated players and fans will not be able to attend at least three NRL round one games in March which are scheduled for Queensland.
Storm chief executive Justin Rodski said they were continuing discussions with Asofa-Solomona, who last week posted an anti-vaccination video on his social media.
With three weeks required between jabs, he needs to have his first by the end of this week.
"He's still got a little bit of time to make his decision on whether or not he wants to be vaccinated and we're really hopeful he does and he can return to training on December 7 and begin his preparations," Rodski said.
"He has this week to make that decision and then it starts to impact his pre-season and his training.
"In saying that there's still pathways for him to return to training and playing next year and we're working through what that framework looks like and the contractual considerations are but it's obviously a really complicated issue."
Rodski said he wasn't aware of other clubs approaching Asofa-Solomona.
Rodski admitted the situation would be far simpler if the NRL had followed the lead of the AFL and made player vaccinations mandatory across the competition.
"From a code perspective if the NRL had mandated vaccinations the pathway through this would be much clearer ... now each individual club is required to work through it and each club has a very different set of circumstances it needs to consider," he said.
