{"id":606393,"date":"2026-09-20T17:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T17:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/606393\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T17:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T17:18:13","slug":"nrl-2026-warriors-forward-ali-leiataua-rocks-kalyn-ponga-with-shoulder-charge-on-report-no-sin-bin-knights-eden-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/606393\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Warriors forward Ali Leiataua rocks Kalyn Ponga with shoulder charge, on report, no sin-bin, Knights, Eden Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ali Leiataua is lucky to still be on the field in the sudden-death semi-final between the Warriors and Knights at a packed Eden Park in Auckland.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The hulking Warriors back-rower put a shot on Knights fullback Kalyn Ponga in the eighth minute which folded the superstar.<\/p>\n

Ponga was looking to come up with an attacking raid from inside his own half when he copped a whack by Leiataua that put him on his backside.<\/p>\n

The replays showed the Warriors forward didn\u2019t attempt to wrap his arms around the Knights skipper and looked to put on a shoulder charge. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe rocks him, bang with the left shoulder,\u201d Fox League\u2019s Michael Ennis said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGee, there might be a little more in this. This might be a sin-bin. There was no real wrapping motion. Gee, only on report.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was contact with Ponga\u2019s head and the ball, but it was only judged to be a penalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know where you\u2019re going with that one. At another time, if that\u2019s a sin-bin, you\u2019re probably not going to be outraged,\u201d commentator Andrew Voss said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was not much technique in the tackle from Ali Leiataua.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ennis felt he was \u201cvery lucky to remain on the field\u201d. <\/p>\n

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – SEPTEMBER 20: Ali Leiataua of the Warriors tackles Kalyn Ponga of the Knights during the NRL Semi Final match between the New Zealand Warriors and Newcastle Knights at Eden Park on September 20, 2026, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ali Leiataua is lucky to still be on the field in the sudden-death semi-final between the Warriors and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-606393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}