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The North Queensland lock was sent to the sin bin just 15 seconds into Saturday\u2019s contest and was offered a one-match ban with an early guilty plea.<\/p>\n
But the club rolled the dice and hit the jackpot with the representative star cleared to play this weekend after an initial blow was delivered by the judiciary panel of Henry Perenara and Bob Lindner.<\/p>\n
The panel found Cotter guilty after a lengthy deliberation, but Hancock then sought a downgrade to the unanimous ruling when he was told he could by judiciary chairman Geoffrey Bellew.<\/p>\n
The charge was reduced to a grade one which means Cotter has to pay a $1500 fine but is free to play in the first week of the finals.<\/p>\n
Hancock\u2019s footy experience proved telling, with the criminal lawyer representing North Queensland in the Toyota Cup before he played 128 games in the Queensland Cup.<\/p>\n
Hancock didn\u2019t deny that his client\u2019s shoulder had come into contact with the veteran forward\u2019s head, but he made it clear from the outset that the careless charge wasn\u2019t warranted.<\/p>\n
He argued that Cotter was knocked off his course by teammate Coen Hess which stopped him from making a normal tackle, with Hancock even playing with Hess for the Northern Pride a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was entirely rational and what you\u2019d expect when tackling a big dude on a kick-off,\u201d he told the panel, with Hancock helping Cotter get off at the judiciary twice in the past month.<\/p>\n
\u201cHess makes contact on his left shoulder and Reuben\u2019s trajectory changed quite drastically from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reuben Cotter of the Cowboys is sent to the sin bin during the round 27 NRL match between North Queensland Cowboys and Canberra Raiders at Qld Country Bank Stadium, on September 05, 2026, in Townsville, Australia. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hancock said Hess\u2019 involvement meant Cotter\u2019s body was bent out of whack and resulted in him turning into a \u201creverse C\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said there was nothing careless about Cotter\u2019s approach and that he had no scope to predict the contact that bumped him off his legal trajectory.<\/p>\n
NRL counsel Lachlan Gyles argued that there was direct contact between Cotter\u2019s shoulder and his opponent\u2019s head, with Papalii forced off for a head injury assessment which he passed.<\/p>\n
He was adamant that it wasn\u2019t a head clash and that there was a high level of force from Cotter who was rising in his contact before Hess bumped him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo reason at all that he couldn\u2019t have dropped into a safe position where he wasn\u2019t likely to come into contact with the head or neck of Papalii,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The panel agreed that Cotter was already moving upwards before Hess\u2019 contact which played a role in the tackle, but wasn\u2019t worthy of a grade two charge. <\/p>\n
The verdict means Cotter will start at lock on Saturday night in Sydney, with the Queensland representative scoring three tries in his four finals games for the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cowboys co-captain Reuben Cotter is free to play in Saturday night\u2019s elimination final against the Sharks after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-884546","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\/884546","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=884546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}