Knights director of football Peter Parr hopes the club can move forward from the David Klemmer controversy after the prop accepted a suspended fine and returned to training on Friday.
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Parr, who spoke with reporters late Friday after the drawn-out matter came to a close, said it had been an "unfortunate, and in some ways, uncomfortable week" - his first in the new overarching management role.
Klemmer, stood down on Tuesday and told to train on his own after a much-publicised confrontation with high-performance manager Hayden Knowles during last week's 24-10 loss to Canterbury, accepted an undisclosed suspended fine from the club for his actions.
The 28-year-old had been served with a show-cause notice for refusing to be interchanged and spraying Knowles, but the matter was resolved after mediation between Klemmer, his management and club officials.
"He [Klemmer] has admitted his fault in what happened," Parr said. "We've accepted his contrition, his thought process at the time and we've all agreed now that we should move on."
Parr said the show-cause notice was unrelated to the Eels' interest in Klemmer.
He said the Knights intended to honour the final year of Klemmer's contract, reportedly worth more than $800,000 next season, but admitted the approach from the Eels did not progress because the prop had no interest in leaving Newcastle.
"Parramatta had a conversation with our recruitment manager Clint Zammit to see whether it could be something that could happen, and my understanding is it never went any further than that because David wasn't interested in any part of the deal," Parr said.
Parr does not expect the incident to have any lingering impact within the club.
"David Klemmer, Hayden Knowles - they're all good guys," he said.
"When you're dealing with good people, whilst in any relationship occasionally there's little bumps in the road, what happened on this occasion is unfortunate, and we wish it could have been avoided, but given the character of both people involved I don't expect any conflict or any drama moving forward."
Parr said the club had made changes to ensure any similar incidents in the future aren't played out so publicly.
"It was brought to the attention of our HR [human resources] department fairly rapidly, and once the HR department is involved that due process has to follow," he said.
"So now what we've been able to do is, from today, change the process where any of these types of incidents ... they can come to me now as the director of football and I will decide if they have to be escalated to HR or to the CEO."
Klemmer will be free to play next week, Parr confirmed, but will miss Newcastle's clash with Wests Tigers.
He joined in a ballwork session with his teammates on Friday, also attended by Knights skipper Kalyn Ponga who was wearing a bright yellow "no contact" vest.
Ponga has been sidelined indefinitely after a recent bout of concussion. Sunday's match will be the second he has missed since being sent for tests.
There are suggestions he will not play again this year, but Parr said the club was yet to make a call.
