There’s been a lot of talk about Erin Molan lately, most of it asking: Where the heck is she?
In the past month, Molan has been the subject of abhorrent trolling because of an apparent feud with former player Andrew Johns who finds her “difficult to work with.” Allegedly.
During Channel Nine’s NRL Grand Final coverage – about 12 hours of broadcasting – Molan and Johns never had to so much as eyeball each other, with her taking on the pre-show work and interviewing the families of the winner’s after the match while the NRL great was in the commentary box.
Erin Molan’s call to action on The NRL Footy Show. Post continues below video.
This naturally got tongues wagging. ‘It’s the feud. She’s being pushed out,’ they yelled, with no confirmation. To the contrary, actually, with a Nine spokesperson telling the Daily Telegraph it was “clearly another beat up”.
Perhaps after that things would have returned to normal, except it was not long after October 6’s final that viewers began to notice Molan was unusually absent from her normal roles.
Again, people asked where she was. Conspiracy theories that she was being “sidelined” because of her alleged fraught relationship with Johns swirled.
But no, Molan confirmed on Sunday she had been unable to work after spending nine nights in the hospital with a badly broken arm.
Molan is the toughest woman in the NRL and an award-winning talk back radio host: Both extremely male dominated environments.
She has been relentlessly trolled, even threatened, and she still rolled herself out of bed as per usual and got on with it, until she was physically unable to do so.
And as if it was ever in doubt, she's clearly damn good at what she does.
Molan's work ethic is well-known and she called in to her (award winning) show on Sunday to tell Peters how she was tracking.
"It doesn’t sit well with me on any level, not being able to work, but it was a much needed rest, advised by doctors, and a fair stint in hospital as well," she said.
"It’s fairly painful. It’s one of the more painful breaks you can do, but my attitude is always that it could have been so much worse. I live another day so, hooray."
Feud or no feud, conspiracy theories or no conspiracy theories, broken arm or no broken arm, all Erin Molan wants to do is get on with her job. Can we please let her?