{"id":909795,"date":"2026-09-29T12:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909795\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T12:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:50:15","slug":"nrl-2026-nathan-cleary-injury-sparks-hip-drop-debate-phoenix-crossland-ban-reaction-grand-final-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909795\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Nathan Cleary injury sparks hip-drop debate, Phoenix Crossland ban, reaction, grand final news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NRL has been urged to take stronger action in a bid to eradicate hip-drops from the game after Panthers superstar Nathan Cleary became the latest player to fall victim to the tackle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Cleary suffered a serious compound fracture of the ankle as a result of an ugly tackle from Phoenix Crossland, who was banned for four games by the NRL judiciary on Tuesday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The NRL\u2019s counsel argued to the judiciary that it had to send a \u201cvery serious message\u201d to protect players in the wake of Cleary\u2019s injury, but the NRL 360 panel questioned if even more needs to be done to stamp out the tackle. <\/p>\n

To prove that point, foxsports.com.au\u2019s Paul Crawley pulled up vision of an illegal tackle which saw former Tigers winger Taniela Tuiaki retire from the game. <\/p>\n

Tuiaki suffered a sickening ankle injury in Round 24 of the 2009 season and despite undergoing three operations he was unable to return to the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was in 2009 and it resulted in a compound fracture that ruined this bloke\u2019s career,\u201d Crawley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the same tackle that we\u2019re seeing today, 17 years later. We\u2019ve had all this opportunity. We\u2019ve known how dangerous it is. There\u2019s so many players injured by this tackle. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet, on the weekend, we had Nathan\u2019s one and we all see it as an accident and it is. It\u2019s a terrible, terrible accident and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s intentional, right? <\/p>\n

\u201cBut you had a similar tackle and this is where I reckon the NRL has made a rod for its own back because do we want to stamp this tackle out or do we want to only stamp it out when there\u2019s a serious injury?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Again, Crawley had the receipts as he pointed to Victor Radley\u2019s tackle on Herbie Farnworth<\/a> which only resulted in the Roosters forward picking up a fine.<\/p>\n

Crawley said he believed the Radley incident was a \u201cmore traditional hip drop tackle\u201d but only resulted in a penalty at the time because the Dolphins centre was quick to get back to his feet.<\/p>\n

Radley hit with huge hip drop concern | 00:31<\/p>\n

He also mentioned the decision to downgrade Nicho Hynes\u2019 dangerous contact charge<\/a> in September last year after the ankle injury suffered by Marcelo Montoya was revealed to not be as severe as first thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where I\u2019m saying when the Bunker is talking about force, it\u2019s almost impossible to know if it\u2019s actually always the force that\u2019s causing the injuries because all these tackles can be so potentially dangerous,\u201d Crawley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo surely what we\u2019ve got to do is find a way to get rid of the tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Crawley called for the introduction of a black-and-white rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you really want to get rid of this like they did with punching and the melees and everything the starting point has to be a sin bin and from there the match review committee will work out how many weeks the suspensions are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise it all continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

CODE Sports reporter David Riccio agreed, saying it was \u201csad\u201d that it took a superstar like Cleary getting injured for the rugby league world to have a more serious conversation about hip-drop tackles.<\/p>\n

Riccio was concerned with the Bunker \u201cplaying doctor\u201d and while in the case of Cleary it was obvious that he had suffered a season-ending injury, it isn\u2019t always easy to tell if that is the case.<\/p>\n

In fact, sometimes the severity of the injury is not even known when the match review committee hands down its findings as was the case with Penrith hooker Mitch Kenny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Initial scans confirmed an eight-to-12 week sideline stint for Kenny but complications in his recovery meant the Panthers hooker didn\u2019t return until after 19 weeks.<\/p>\n

Does the injury matter? Send off debate | 02:06<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy Katoa suffered a two-week ban for a 19-week injury. You just don\u2019t know,\u201d Riccio said.<\/p>\n

Riccio also brought up the season-ending ACL tear J\u2019maine Hopgood suffered as a result of a Ryan Couchman tackle which saw the Dragons forward banned for four weeks<\/a>, arguing that \u201clonger suspensions are the only way\u201d.<\/p>\n

The entire NRL 360 panel, however, agreed suspensions should not exactly match the length of recovery for the victim of hip-drop tackles.<\/p>\n

As for finding potential solutions, former Broncos legend Gorden Tallis said it all comes down to tackle technique.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why this tackle is happening because you\u2019re not allowed to drive your shoulder into their legs and put them on the ground anymore because that was spearing in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was cannonball. One-on-one you can but very rarely you get one-on-one tackles well. So now they hit with their body… it comes down to the whole technique, and it\u2019s never going to be out of the game until they let you drive back in with your shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NRL has been urged to take stronger action in a bid to eradicate hip-drops from the game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-909795","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\/909795","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=909795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}