{"id":492598,"date":"2026-02-20T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492598\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:50:09","slug":"dolphins-defeat-new-zealand-warriors-in-nrl-trial-jackson-ford-sin-bin-for-hip-drop-tackle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492598\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins defeat New Zealand Warriors in NRL trial, Jackson Ford sin-bin for hip-drop tackle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Zealand Warriors’ hopes of having no-nonsense forward Jackson Ford on deck for their season opener are in the hands of the NRL’s match review committee after he was sin-binned in a 38-34 trial loss to the Dolphins.<\/p>\n

Referee Grant Atkins sent Ford to the bin and placed the prop on report midway through the first half of today’s meeting at Leichhardt Oval for an ugly hip-drop tackle on Selwyn Cobbo.<\/p>\n

New Dolphins recruit Cobbo was cleared of injury and played on, but Ford’s technique is expected to draw the attention of the review committee and could potentially lead to suspension.<\/p>\n

The key stat behind every NRL team in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

With the preseason challenge well underway and the season-opening matches in Las Vegas on the horizon, find out the key numbers that will make or break your team’s NRL chances for 2026.<\/p>\n

The Warriors are already without co-captain Mitch Barnett, halfback Luke Metcalf and Te Maire Martin to start the season.<\/p>\n

There are also injury clouds over Marata Niukore, Chanel Harris-Tavita and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck ahead of their round-one match against the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n

Ford, who scored the game’s first try, was also the victim of some foul play himself when he was hit with a Francis Molo shoulder charge.<\/p>\n

The Dolphins prop was also sent to the sin-bin in the 53rd minute, and while his side were down to 12 men, the Warriors let rip by scoring three consecutive tries.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi side was much improved from last weekend’s loss to a young Manly outfit and got out to an 18-10 half-time lead courtesy of tries from Ford, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Wayde Egan.<\/p>\n

Cobbo grabbed the Dolphins’ first of the night and spent time on both the wing and at right centre.<\/p>\n

Tries from Brad Schneider, Trai Fuller and Jamayne Isaako allowed the Dolphins to edge in front early in the second half before Molo’s sin-binning opened the floodgates.<\/p>\n

Ali Leiataua, Watene-Zelezniak and Eddie Ieremia-Toeava all crossed before Warriors coach Andrew Webster hauled his big guns off.<\/p>\n

With the Warriors down on strike power the Dolphins enjoyed a late resurgence with tries from Tevita Naufahu, John Fineanganofo and Brian Pouniu securing a late Dolphins victory.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Zealand Warriors’ hopes of having no-nonsense forward Jackson Ford on deck for their season opener are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5844,64,63,162,248758,158,248759,8088,588,85,3198],"class_list":["post-492598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-abc-sport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dolphins","tag-jackson-ford","tag-nrl","tag-on-report","tag-sin-bin","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492598","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=492598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}