{"id":19825,"date":"2025-07-25T00:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T00:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/19825\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T00:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T00:36:12","slug":"roosters-friendly-fire-sees-smith-wobble-to-the-sheds-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/19825\/","title":{"rendered":"Rooster’s friendly fire sees Smith wobble to the sheds – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday night’s clash between the Sydney Roosters<\/a> and the Melbourne Storm<\/a> was a rugby league bloodbath, with multiple key names suffering injuries throughout the high-scoring affair.<\/p>\n

Players from both sides were sent off the field early with injury concerns, with one incident occurring as a result of a friendly fire clash.<\/p>\n

Mid-way through the first half, the Roosters were defending their line against the Storm, with a two-point buffer that they’d hoped to expand on.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for them, not only did Harry Grant<\/a> break through the line and score, but a pair of Roosters clashed heads with sickening intensity in an attempt to stop the Storm hooker from scoring.<\/p>\n

Sandon Smith<\/a> and Salesi Foketi<\/a> were both knocked to the ground after the brutal head clash, knocking out the former in his return to first grade.<\/p>\n

\"NRLBRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 11: Salesi Foketi<\/a> of the Roosters looks on during the round six NRL<\/a> match between Brisbane Broncos<\/a> and Sydney Roosters<\/a> at Suncorp Stadium, on April 11, 2025, in Brisbane, Australia<\/a>. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Roosters medics rushed to both players aid, with Foketi and Smith being helped to the sideline for HIA’s.<\/p>\n

Smith, in particular, was in a bad way, struggling to stand straight as two trainers carried him off. He was unable to return to the match.<\/p>\n

Roosters coach Trent Robinson<\/a> touched on how the side will press forward in the post-match press conference, stating, “We’ll lose [Sandon] for a week, obviously, and Hugo [Savala] will be right to go, I’d say.”<\/p>\n

Foketi was deemed a Category 2 and passed his HIA in the sheds.<\/p>\n

In a game that also saw Jahrome Hughes<\/a> hobble off with a shoulder dislocation, the injury toll in the match was certainly worrisome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thursday night’s clash between the Sydney Roosters and the Melbourne Storm was a rugby league bloodbath, with multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-19825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}