Cronulla’s minor premiership ambitions could be thrown in disarray with star James Maloney facing a three-game ban for a dangerous tackle in Monday’s 18-18 NRL draw with Gold Coast.
The match review committee on Tuesday hit the Sharks five-eighth with a grade two dangerous contact charge for his 88th-minute tackle on Titans centre Konrad Hurrell.
He can take cop a two-game suspension with an early guilty plea.
Maloney wrapped his arms around the left leg of a standing Hurrell before bringing the former Warriors star down by driving his shoulder into the back of his leg in a delayed cannon-ball type tackle.
An upset Hurrell stayed down, allowing the bunker to review the incident, however the tackle went unpenalised and he was ordered to play the ball.
The grade two charge carries a 250-point base penalty, however a non-similar offence for Maloney in the past two years bumped up the charge to 300 points.
The Sharks’ final five games are against Canberra (home), St George Illawarra (away), South Sydney (away), the Sydney Roosters (home) and Melbourne (away).
The Sharks, who are one point ahead of Melbourne at the top of the ladder, have until midday Wednesday to decide whether to fight the charge.
Squidward
Roar Rookie
Muzz with the zinger well done
Craig
Guest
Craig
Guest
Given O'Donnell was probably the biggest grub to play rugby league in the modern era, I'd suggest its karma.
Rod
Guest
Not wrong O'donnell was never the same player after that injury either . I can't believe how they can't see the obvious out there .
MAX
Guest
Absolutely Brilliant...and for all NZ to enjoy.
Muzz
Guest
Hurrell enjoys being milked so i'll go with B. Lock in Kiwi cow, MAX
MAX
Guest
It's his own fault. If he hadn't been so angry with himself for missing every attempt at a field goal or better still had kicked one, the Hurrell incident does not happen. Question for Konrad " Which is easiest to milk, Aussie cow or Kiwi cow"?
Mike from tari
Guest
The officiating last night was terrible,it's what is not penalised that is annoying, I thought that the NRL brought in rules to clean up the ruck, whatever they have done has not worked, they need to make the player play the ball where he is tackled, the tacklers need to roll away, not jump over the tackled player or pull him backwards, they need to police the markers, for gods sake they have 2 referees on the field. Now the extra time was just a dogs breakfast of refereeing, at one stage 1 team had 4 marker & the other team had 3 markers chasing the field gold, not one of them were square at marker, they took off before the ball was played, just bloody shocking, our game is becoming a farce.
Don
Roar Rookie
Not quite. Maloney said that Hurrell told him he was milking it. Interestingly, the painful expression on his face as Maloney makes contact doesn't look at all like milking a penalty.
Jimmmy
Guest
Does he have to do his ACL for this to be deemed a bad tackle . The second effort was not a good look.
Bill Blazejowski
Roar Rookie
Dave Gallop and Dave Smith could have dealt with the rise of the cannonball/crushers and other garbage that the wrestling coaches brought in during tackling drills. But apart from some suspensions here and there, nothing was ever really done to stamp it out of the game. I liked the game better when it flowed and players rolled away or got out of the ruck to rejoin their defensive line or slot in at marker.
Bulldog
Guest
Agree - They need to stamp out what Prior was doing last night. Someone will get seriously hurt from that sort of rubbish. I remember Luke O'Donnell suffering a major injury from a similar leg pulling incident.
up up cronulla
Guest
Hurrell said he milked it, ran pretty a couple of plays later to nearly score, hurrell the man who broke anthony tupoes jaw!!
Bill Blazejowski
Roar Rookie
The NRL are laughable. They could have easily have given Matt Prior a two week holiday as well for multiple leg pulls during the same game. Come to think of it, Cam Smith made several identical low tackles during the Cowboys game on Saturday night in the first half and of course wasn't penalised or charged for it. Don't even get me started on the Reynolds tripping incident.
Jimmmy
Guest
Very dangerous. He needs a holiday.