{"id":907138,"date":"2026-09-27T07:44:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T07:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907138\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T07:44:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T07:44:22","slug":"nrl-2026-nathan-cleary-suffers-compound-fracture-as-phoenix-crossland-sent-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907138\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Nathan Cleary suffers compound fracture as Phoenix Crossland sent off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Panthers superstar Nathan Cleary has suffered a suspected compound fracture to his left ankle after he was the victim of a hip-drop tackle that saw Phoenix Crossland sent off just before half-time.<\/p>\n<p>Cleary was in doubt for the preliminary final with a foot injury he suffered a fortnight ago, with the world\u2019s best player named on the bench for Sunday\u2019s showdown.<\/p>\n<p>He came on after 25 minutes and had looked good before he took the ball to the line five minutes before the break.<\/p>\n<p>Crossland attempted to bring him down but lost all control of the tackle as he landed on the back of Cleary\u2019s leg, leaving him in agony with his foot pointing the wrong way.<\/p>\n<p>Cleary was taken off on a medi-cab before referee Gerard Sutton gave Crossland his marching orders. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cInitially he\u2019s up high, he makes a definite action to twist. He comes down on the leg with weight. There\u2019s extreme risk of serious injury. You\u2019re off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>More to come<\/p>\n<p>Originally published as <a class=\"body-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/nathan-cleary-to-come-off-the-bench-as-panthers-make-major-changes-for-their-preliminary-final\/news-story\/651fb2d5425f02760b41f9e164aa43b8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nathan Cleary suffers compound fracture of the ankle after shocking tackle leads to prelim final send off<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panthers superstar Nathan Cleary has suffered a suspected compound fracture to his left ankle after he was the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[426738,426705,475324,376791,475318,462573,404514,438429,475327,475320,475319,420963,475314,64,63,50921,475326,475321,51998,475328,16308,419054,475323,394584,421758,475317,475315,475329,12979,7992,1203,761,762,158,5357,395200,421891,71040,380347,102125,37042,475322,85,8825,433955,378784,377205,384381,475316,434002,87494,460256,468569,378503,377548,54798,475325,6009],"class_list":["post-907138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-s-best-player","tag-s-leg","tag-s-showdown-he","tag-25-minutes","tag-a-definite-action","tag-a-foot-injury","tag-a-fortnight","tag-a-hip-drop-tackle","tag-a-medi-cab","tag-a-sickening-injury","tag-a-suspected-compound-fracture","tag-agony","tag-all-control","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cleary","tag-compound-fracture","tag-crossland","tag-doubt","tag-extreme-risk","tag-finals","tag-five-minutes","tag-gruesome-injury","tag-half-time","tag-his-foot","tag-his-left-ankle","tag-his-marching-orders","tag-horror-tackle","tag-injuries","tag-knights","tag-nathan-cleary","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-panthers","tag-panthers-superstar-nathan-cleary","tag-phoenix-crossland","tag-prelim-final","tag-referee-gerard-sutton","tag-serious-injury","tag-shock","tag-shocking-tackle","tag-sports","tag-sunday","tag-the-ankle","tag-the-back","tag-the-ball","tag-the-bench","tag-the-break-crossland","tag-the-leg","tag-the-line","tag-the-preliminary-final","tag-the-rugby-league-world","tag-the-tackle","tag-the-victim","tag-the-world","tag-the-wrong-way-cleary","tag-weight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907138","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=907138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}