{"id":776587,"date":"2026-07-03T14:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T14:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776587\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T14:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T14:05:13","slug":"nrl-2026-cody-walker-apologises-in-south-sydney-rabbitohs-press-conference-wayne-bennett-reaction-to-sin-bin-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776587\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Cody Walker apologises in South Sydney Rabbitohs press conference, Wayne Bennett reaction to sin bin, video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cody Walker took full accountability for his stunning brain explosion against the Panthers<\/a>, declaring he \u201clet the team down massively\u201d after South Sydney\u2019s loss to Penrith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Walker left his teammates one man down after lashing out at Jack Cogger, while also taking a crucial try to Dayne Jennings off the board in the process.<\/p>\n

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Liam Henry went on to score a try for the Panthers with Walker in the bin and while the Rabbitohs were able to close the gap to 12-10 at halftime, all that extra tackling showed in a lethargic second half from South Sydney.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Friday\u2019s post-game press conference, Walker owned his mistake and revealed he apologised to Cogger after fulltime. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t good enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a senior player, I\u2019ve just got to be better in those moments and not let my aggression get the better of me. I let my teammates down, and I\u2019m really sorry about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to Jack after the game and apologised to him. My emotions got the better of me. It wasn\u2019t good enough as a senior player. It\u2019s not on. I let the team down massively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got that one wrong for sure. I\u2019ll own that. There\u2019s no excuses for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Wayne Bennett didn\u2019t want to dwell on the incident too much, telling reporters he did not have \u201cmuch\u201d to say about it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t make me happy,\u201d he added when asked if he was disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it happens. We\u2019ve got to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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‘I’ve never seen anything like this!’ | 01:15<\/p>\n

Bennett certainly wouldn\u2019t have been happy with South Sydney\u2019s effort in the second half, with the Rabbitohs making eight errors and missing 24 tackles to give themselves no chance of winning. <\/p>\n

Bennett said his team had put in a \u201cfair effort\u201d while down a man but were \u201cway off the pace\u201d in the second half. <\/p>\n

As for Tom Jenkins\u2019 contentious second try, which could have both been overruled for a double movement and knock on, Bennett again didn\u2019t have much to say but reiterated his displeasure for the Bunker.<\/p>\n

Cody sin binned for ‘SELFISH’ act | 00:35<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m over the Bunker. I\u2019ve told you that before. It just highlighted that tonight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite largely being an 80-minute second rower, David Fifita was limited to just 55 minutes on Friday with Bennett explaining he took the 26-year-old off because he looked \u201ctired\u201d and was \u201cnot out there to be a tackling machine\u201d as South Sydney struggled for possession in the second half.<\/p>\n

One shining light for the Rabbitohs was the performance of young winger Jennings, with Walker declaring the now two-game rookie has a \u201cbright future ahead\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had some tough carries there. He\u2019s got some speed. He\u2019s got some athleticism, so he\u2019s definitely a player to watch in the near future,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s handled it quite well. As Wayne said, he had a few errors around him, but he did some really good things tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cody Walker took full accountability for his stunning brain explosion against the Panthers, declaring he \u201clet the team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-776587","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\/776587","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=776587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}