{"id":908531,"date":"2026-09-28T12:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908531\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T12:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:06:11","slug":"nrl-news-2026-phoenix-crossland-social-media-abuse-nathan-cleary-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908531\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Phoenix Crossland social media abuse, Nathan Cleary response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nathan Cleary<\/a> has pleaded with fans to stop directing hateful comments towards Phoenix Crossland after he was subject to intense abuse for his tackle that fractured the Panthers star\u2019s ankle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crossland was referred straight to the judiciary<\/a> after he was sent off in the preliminary final and faces an uphill battle to beat a charge of dangerous contact.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Phoenix Crossland leaves the field.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

The Knights<\/a> hooker\u2019s last Instagram post was July 15 and has since been bombarded with abuse. <\/p>\n

Crossland posted to his Instagram story with a video featuring the abusive comments, captioning it \u201cwould you want your kids reading this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary has also come out and defended Crossland. <\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t be one of those people writing comments like this to Phoenix, it was a complete accident and he doesn\u2019t deserve this unwarranted hate,\u201d he wrote on his own Instagram story. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe reached out to apologise and I have nothing but respect for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a competitor and our game is made up of split second moments that sometimes lead to unfortunate circumstances. <\/p>\n

\u201cComments like this are so unfair. Spread love, not hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Nine\u2019s 100% Footy, Paul Gallen shared his belief that Crossland should not have been sent off. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s the worst possible result for Cleary and we don\u2019t want it to happen but when you look at the actual action of the hip-drop, I thought Victor Radley\u2019s (on Friday) was worse,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, Crossland\u2019s hip was on the ground … we don\u2019t want to see anyone injured but I don\u2019t think he deserved to be sent off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron Smith, who missed out on the 2008 grand final due to a grapple tackle, said it will be an \u201cawful feeling\u201d for Crossland if he misses out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thought is, \u2018I\u2019ve let my teammates down and all my fans down by not being available\u2019,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Cleary has pleaded with fans to stop directing hateful comments towards Phoenix Crossland after he was subject…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-908531","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\/908531","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=908531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}