St George Illawarra star Jack de Belin has dropped an attempt to seek an injunction against the NRL which would allow him to play.
De Belin was set to have his case heard in the Federal Court on Thursday, the same day the NRL season will kick off when Brisbane meet Melbourne.
However, the NSW back-rower, who has been stood down under the game’s controversial “no fault” policy, will not proceed.
Instead, the case will be heard over three days in the Federal Court from April 15 during which de Belin will challenge the legality of the rule.
De Belin will be unavailable for selection until then.
“Mr de Belin’s application for interlocutory relief and the hearing set down for Thursday, 14 March 2019 will not take place,” the NRL said in a statement.
“In the interim, the No Fault Stand Down Rule will continue to apply to Jack de Belin and he will be stood down during this period.”
De Belin was stood down after he was charged with aggravated sexual assault, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
After a horror off-season, the ARL Commission pushed through rules which allows them to immediately stand down any player who has been charged with a crime which carries a jail term of 11 years or more.
The rules were rubber-stamped by the ARLC on Monday.
Nick
Roar Guru
I do know, yeah. He has silk-grade counsel. The costs are prohibitive, and he only has so much money. People say he's on $650000, and while this is true, the tax man takes about $300000 of that. Then he's got normal financial expenses to worry about, and then finally he can use what is remaining for his defence. Losing $100k so he can make no financial gain would have been absolutely foolish.
Paul
Roar Guru
How's that going to work if he's got a 3 day case in the Federal Court and the sex assault case, presumably elsewhere?
Aiden
Guest
Injunctive relief applications are extremely expensive to run. If successful it would only have him playing for a few weeks, at cost of around $100k, and then he’s back in Court for the substantive hearing anyway. So ... the comment was very plausible.
AE47
Roar Rookie
Because you know yeah !
Nick
Roar Guru
He was obviously presented with the first bill from the lawyers and did the math. Need a bit of pocket money to defend the assault charges rather than a spurious fight in court over being on fully paid suspension.
Cadfael
Roar Guru
The case is to be heard om April 16. One day before his sex assault court case.