{"id":953760,"date":"2026-11-05T17:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T17:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/953760\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T17:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T17:28:13","slug":"the-mole-nrl-news-matt-nean-speaks-after-20-year-ban-for-referee-touching-overturned-west-tamworth-group-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/953760\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mole NRL news, Matt Nean speaks after 20-year ban for referee touching overturned, West Tamworth Group 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Nean \u2013 the Indigenous bush footy player who had a 20-year ban sensationally overturned midway through last year<\/a> \u2013 has won a contract to play again in 2027.<\/p>\n

Nean served more than nine years for allegedly man-handling a referee<\/a> playing for West Tamworth in the 2016 Group 4 grand final, despite vision of the incident appearing to show he barely touched the match official as the two crossed paths.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Matt Nean was banned for 20 years for allegedly making contact with the referee during a grand final in 2016.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Nean was originally suspended for 18 weeks. He appealed the verdict and was promptly slapped with the mammoth 20-year ban.<\/p>\n

Following a campaign by\u00a0nine.com.au, the\u00a0NSW Rugby League\u00a0and Group 4 dropped the ban midway through last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nean, now aged 35, played four games at the end of last season for Dungowan Cowboys and showed enough to win a contract with the club for next season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m over the moon – for nearly a decade I was banned and thought I would never play footy again,\u201d Nean told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing I\u2019m happiest about is that I will hopefully get to play with my son Kobhan (aged 17).<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great kid and playing alongside him will make everything I have been through worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nean, who works for the Aboriginal Land Council, will be very much a part-time footballer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was never about the money because there isn\u2019t much of it in bush footy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to play the game I love and this contract means the world to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Nean \u2013 the Indigenous bush footy player who had a 20-year ban sensationally overturned midway through last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":953761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-953760","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\/953760","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=953760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}