{"id":57108,"date":"2025-08-10T06:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/57108\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T06:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:52:09","slug":"cronulla-sharks-hit-hard-as-star-forward-suspended-for-rest-of-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/57108\/","title":{"rendered":"Cronulla Sharks hit hard as star forward suspended for rest of season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cronulla Sharks\u2019 troubles have deepened after Kiwi second-rower Briton Nikora was slapped with a three-game suspension following their shock 22-14 loss to the Dragons on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Nikora was sin-binned late in their Round 23 clash after being penalised for a reckless high tackle on Dragons winger Corey Allan.<\/p>\n<p>The NRL match review committee charged him with a grade-two careless high tackle, which carries a four-week ban due to it being his third offence. With an early guilty plea, the suspension drops to three games.<\/p>\n<p>Given the Sharks have a bye in Round 25, and only three games remain in the regular season, Nikora\u2019s suspension effectively ends his campaign \u2014 unless the Sharks make the finals.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/rugby-league\/news\/tom-hazelton-injury-return-date-sharks\/56dfdae69962612fb20d4fbb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">How Sharks could receive giant boost this weekend<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Currently sitting seventh on the NRL ladder with 28 competition points, the Sharks hold a narrow two-point lead over eighth-placed Dolphins and ninth-placed Roosters.<\/p>\n<p>Even the Sea Eagles in 10th and the Dragons remain mathematically in finals contention, making the fight for a top-eight spot intensely competitive \u2013\u00a0 meaning the Sharks cannot afford any slip-ups as they push towards the finals.<\/p>\n<p>While the Sharks entered Saturday\u2019s loss on a four-game winning streak, their recent form has been far from convincing \u2013\u00a0 including a narrow 14-12 victory over the then bottom-placed Rabbitohs in Round 21, despite Souths missing several key players due to injury.<\/p>\n<p>Coach Craig Fitzgibbon now faces a challenging road ahead as the Sharks look to maintain their finals hopes without one of their key forwards.<\/p>\n<p>The club has the option to challenge Nikora\u2019s charge at the NRL judiciary, but an unsuccessful appeal would see the suspension extended to four games \u2013 meaning he would miss the first week of the finals, should Cronulla make it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cronulla Sharks\u2019 troubles have deepened after Kiwi second-rower Briton Nikora was slapped with a three-game suspension following&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-57108","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\/57108","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=57108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}