{"id":558248,"date":"2026-03-23T03:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T03:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/558248\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T03:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T03:14:10","slug":"nrl-judiciary-to-sit-after-couchman-hip-drop-cowboy-also-facing-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/558248\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL judiciary to sit after Couchman hip drop, Cowboy also facing suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"

St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> forward Ryan Couchman<\/a> will face the NRL<\/a> judiciary on Tuesday afternoon after being sensationally referred by the match review committee over a hip drop tackle.<\/p>\n

Couchman was sin-binned for the tackle during the first half of Sunday afternoon’s loss to the Parramatta Eels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tackle, which saw him awkwardly fall onto the back of the legs of opposition forward J’maine Hopgood<\/a>, saw the Eels forward taken from the field and take no further part in the game.<\/p>\n

It was revealed after the contest that Hopgood has sustained an ACL injury, ending his season in a bitter blow for the blue and gold.<\/p>\n

Couchman, meanwhile, is facing a suspension length now totally in the hands of the NRL’s judiciary, who will sit on Tuesday evening at Moore Park.<\/p>\n

The Dragon’s forward can still plead guilty to the charge and gain a one-match discount, or fight it in an attempt not to face any time on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

No other charges were handed out from the Eels’ win over the Dragons; however, the later game saw Cowboys fullback Tom Chester<\/a> and Titans hooker Sam Verrills<\/a> both handed charges.<\/p>\n

Chester is facing a week on the sidelines with an early guilty plea, or two if he fights and loses, for a Grade 2 careless high tackle on Jayden Campbell<\/a>, while Verrills is facing a $1000 fine with an early guilty plea, or $1500 with a lost fight at the judiciary, for a Grade 1 careless high tackle on Chester.<\/p>\n

All three players have until midday (AEDT) on Tuesday to determine their pleas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St George Illawarra Dragons forward Ryan Couchman will face the NRL judiciary on Tuesday afternoon after being sensationally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-558248","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\/558248","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=558248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}