New Zealand hooker Phoenix Crossland will miss Sunday’s NRL grand final and the Kiwis’ three Rugby League World Cup pool games after the NRL judiciary handed him a four-match ban for the hip-drop tackle that broke Nathan Cleary’s leg.
The Newcastle Knights hooker pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a dangerous contact charge over the tackle in the 36th minute of the Knights’ 22-14 preliminary final win over the Penrith Panthers on Sunday 27 September. Cleary, the Panthers halfback and four-time premiership winner, suffered a compound fracture and dislocated ankle. Crossland was sent off and referred straight to the judiciary, RNZ reported.
The only question at the hearing in Sydney was how long the ban would be. Crossland’s barrister, James McLeod, argued for two or three weeks, pointing to his client’s clean record and the fact he had never been sent off before. The NRL pushed for four, arguing Crossland had failed to exercise a proper duty of care, and the three-member panel chaired by Geoffrey Bellew agreed.
That means Crossland, 26, will sit in the stands when the Knights play the Sydney Roosters for the premiership on Sunday. It is a hard landing for a player who was born in Wellington, moved to Newcastle as a boy and has spent his whole first-grade career with the Knights, playing 132 games for the club.
He did not hide how he felt. “I called him yesterday. It was obviously a tough phone call,” Crossland told the hearing, according to RNZ, which carried the ABC’s report. He said he had also reached out to Cleary’s father, Ivan, the Panthers coach, and that Cleary had told him not to worry and understood it was an accident.
“It’s killing me, it’s been the worst couple of days of my life,” Crossland said. “It’s meant to be the best week of my life and it’s been far from it.”
Cleary has been generous in return. After surgery on Monday he posted from his hospital bed to thank supporters and promise “I’ll be back”, RNZ reported. He also defended Crossland from online abuse, writing that the tackle “was a complete accident & he doesn’t deserve this unwarranted hate.”
For New Zealand rugby league fans the bigger worry is the World Cup. The tournament starts on 15 October, when the Kiwis play Australia in Sydney. New Zealand then meet the Cook Islands in Christchurch and Fiji on the Gold Coast, with the semi-finals and final in Brisbane in November. The ban covers all three pool games, so if coach Stacey Jones picks Crossland, the earliest he could play is a semi-final, and only if the Kiwis get that far.
Crossland has played six tests for New Zealand and had been expected to be one of the frontline hookers at the tournament. The NZ Herald reported before the hearing that Warriors hooker Wayde Egan is unlikely to get a late call-up even though he now meets the residency rules, because he was not in the wider squad submitted to the International Rugby League. That leaves Jeremy Marshall-King as the likely first choice, with Brandon Smith, who has not played for the Kiwis since 2022, as another option. Te Maire Martin and Kodi Nikorima can also cover the position at a pinch.
Jones now has a selection call to make before the final squad is named. Picking a player who cannot take the field until the knockout stage is a gamble on the team reaching it. Leaving him out weakens a position where the Kiwis are already thin.
The ban also reshapes the grand final. With Crossland out, 19-year-old Diesel Hagan is in line to make his NRL debut on the biggest day of the season, a rare leap for a teenager who has not yet played a first-grade game. The Junee Southern Cross reported the Knights had tendered a character reference from Michael Hagan, who coached Newcastle to the 2001 premiership.
For New Zealand fans the Knights carry mixed feelings. It was Newcastle who ended the Warriors’ season in the semi-finals, a game in which the NRL later admitted the Warriors were wrongly denied a late penalty. The Knights have since knocked out Penrith and now stand one win from a first premiership since 2001, with several New Zealanders in their squad.
The hip-drop tackle has been one of the NRL’s most persistent disciplinary problems in recent seasons. The league has repeatedly toughened its stance on the tackle, in which a defender drops his weight onto the lower legs of the ball carrier, because of the ankle and knee injuries it causes. Cleary’s injury, one of the worst of the season, is likely to renew calls for even harder penalties.
Penrith are left to plan for the 2027 season without knowing exactly when their halfback will be back. Cleary had already been managing a broken bone in his right foot before the preliminary final, and the new injury also ends any hope of him playing for Australia at the World Cup.
Crossland, meanwhile, will watch his teammates chase a premiership and then wait to learn whether the Kiwis still want him for the back end of the World Cup.
Should Stacey Jones still pick Phoenix Crossland for the Kiwis World Cup squad knowing he cannot play until the semi-finals? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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