{"id":697907,"date":"2026-05-27T13:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697907\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:12:13","slug":"state-of-origin-2026-kalyn-ponga-sent-off-for-shoulder-charge-on-tolu-koula-maroons-fullback-what-happened-reaction-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697907\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Origin 2026: Kalyn Ponga sent off for shoulder charge on Tolu Koula, Maroons fullback, what happened, reaction, news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maroons star Kalyn Ponga became the seventh player sent off in Origin history, with the fullback given his marching orders for a shoulder charge in the series opener.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Ponga came over in cover defence as Tolu Koula made a break down the left sideline with Queensland leading 20-6, but collected Blues\u2019 winger\u2019s head with his own.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a head clash but he doesn\u2019t even try and wrap his arm. I think they\u2019ll rule this is a sin bin even though it\u2019s head on head,\u201d Maroons great Cam Smith said.<\/p>\n

Koula would eventually come from the ground and fail a HIA.<\/p>\n

On-field referee Ashley Klein appeared to overrule the Bunker\u2019s call of a sin bin, instead deciding to give Ponga his marching orders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a shoulder charge that makes direct contact to the head. You have a duty of care, you\u2019re off,\u201d Klein said when directing Ponga off the remaining 23 minutes. <\/p>\n

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It left Blues legend Andrew Johns stunned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bleed blue but that Ponga decision is just outrageous,\u201d he said in commentary.<\/p>\n

Maroons great Cameron Smith was equally baffled.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo way … that\u2019s remarkable,\u201d Smith said on Channel Nine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last few years we\u2019ve been disappointed by the influence by the Bunker. They wanted to say ten minutes because it was a head clash,\u201d Johns added. <\/p>\n

The decision not only gave New South Wales a one man advantage, it lit a fire under them. <\/p>\n

The Blues took full advantage, scoring three tries in the final 20 minutes to cap the greatest Origin comeback of all time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maroons star Kalyn Ponga became the seventh player sent off in Origin history, with the fullback given his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[48257,54654,64,63,11096,340177,17337,761,762,158,23858,8088,85,275659],"class_list":["post-697907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-andrew-johns","tag-ashley-klein","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-nuttall","tag-legend-labels","tag-marching-orders","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-shoulder-charge","tag-sin-bin","tag-sports","tag-stunning-scenes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697907","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=697907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}