{"id":908875,"date":"2026-09-28T18:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908875\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T18:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:56:12","slug":"was-it-that-bad-greats-wild-call-on-cleary-tackle-as-hefty-ban-to-impact-world-cup-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908875\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Was it that bad?\u2019 Great\u2019s wild call on Cleary tackle as hefty ban to impact World Cup… and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

The punishment handed to Knights hooker Phoenix Crossland following his nasty hip drop tackle on Nathan Cleary<\/a> continues to be debated.<\/p>\n

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Crossland was sent off in Sunday\u2019s preliminary final win over Penrith after a hip drop tackle resulted in a nasty compound fracture to the champion halfback.<\/p>\n

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Most agreed with the sending off but a number of former players, including Nathan Hindmarsh and Eric Grothe Jnr, argued it was an accident <\/a>and was only worth a sin bin.<\/p>\n

Speaking on NRL 360 on Monday night, journalist Dean Ritchie said those against the send-off were missing an important point.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say there\u2019s no intent, nor wasn\u2019t the tackle malicious. It does not matter,\u201d Ritchie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident has happened. No-one goes out there to be malicious. No-one goes out there with intent, it doesn\u2019t matter. People can\u2019t seem to get it through their heads, it does not matter. He\u2019s committed the crime, he has to be punished.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe should have been dismissed. Those injuries should not happen in our game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a dinosaur, head-in-the-sand, approach to say \u2018that\u2019s rugby league, that\u2019s what happens in rugby league\u2019. We\u2019ve got to stamp this tackle out. It\u2019s clearly dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did the Knights do the impossible? | 11:49<\/p>\n

MORE NRL NEWS<\/p>\n

CROSSLAND CALL: NRL\u2019s damning verdict on Knights star after shocking hip drop<\/a><\/p>\n

TALKING POINTS: Drastic move urged after ugly Cleary scene; great\u2019s huge SBW call<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Australian Test captain Gorden Tallis highlighted the inconsistencies in judging if a hip drop is worth a send-off.<\/p>\n

Mitch Kenny spent months on the sidelines with a fractured fibula and syndesmosis injury after a Kodi Nikorima hip drop in a Round 7 match against the Dolphins.<\/p>\n

The fact Kenny walked off the field meant Nikorima escaped a harsh punishment on the night before he was eventually suspended for two games.<\/p>\n

Tallis also understood why some of his former peers argued against the sending off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas the incident that vicious? Was the incident that bad? The injury\u2019s horrible,\u201d Tallis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some accidents in our game that just happen. And that\u2019s a mishap. I feel a little bit sorry for Phoenix.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fellow ex-Australian Test player Braith Anasta initially didn\u2019t think it was a send-off but understood that the injury to Cleary needed to play a part in the Bunker decision to remove Crossland from the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to eradicate this out of the game. He snapped his leg in half,\u201d Anasta said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWorst case scenario, this could impact his career moving forward and his longevity in our game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is a send-off, and I think as unfortunate as it is to Phoenix, and I feel horrible for him, I think everyone does because it wasn\u2019t intentional, but it was bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Must stamp this tackle out of our game! | 01:26<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was pretty obvious that in that situation, he had to be sent off,\u201d journalist Brent Read added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is Nathan Cleary is in a hospital bed right now because of that tackle. There\u2019s got to be a price to pay for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crossland has been referred straight to the judiciary and Read said he could forget about playing in the grand final on Sunday and possibly for New Zealand next month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty obvious he\u2019s going to get found guilty, I\u2019d imagine and he\u2019ll probably get rubbed out of the World Cup and maybe the start of next season,\u201d Read said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have thought four to five weeks minimum if it\u2019s a referred charge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome matters. If a guy breaks his leg it is different to a guy getting up and playing on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The punishment handed to Knights hooker Phoenix Crossland following his nasty hip drop tackle on Nathan Cleary continues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-908875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908875","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=908875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}