Jared Waerea-Hargreaves is facing the prospect of not playing again until late in the NRL finals after being handed a minimum three-match ban for a high tackle.
After a weekend of drama involving the bunker and match review committee, Waerea-Hargreaves was hit with a grade-two high tackle charge on Monday for his shot on Gold Coast’s Sam Verrills.
The departing Sydney Roosters prop will miss three games with an early plea, or a fourth if he attempts to unsuccessfully fight the charge.
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Assuming the Roosters finish in the top four, an early plea will mean Hargreaves won’t play again until the Tricolours feature in a knockout match in week two or three of the finals.
It also means he may only have one more game left in his NRL career, before the Roosters’ most-capped player departs for the Super League.
Cronulla centre Jesse Ramien is also facing a one-match ban for his high shot on Jack Bird, which would go to two games if he challenged it and lost.
Roosters pair Daniel Tupou and Victor Radley were also charged on Monday, but can accept fines.
It comes after Gold Coast coach Des Hasler declared there was “a lot of confusion” amongst NRL teams about what constituted a high shot in 2024.
The issue was thrown into the spotlight when Canterbury captain Stephen Crichton was not sin-binned on Friday night against the Warriors for a shot that concussed Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.
Crichton was later handed a grade-two charge, and faces a one-match ban.
“There is not a lot of confidence with players around what is a high shot and what isn’t a high shot … what is deemed (to be a high shot) and what is coming back (from officials),” Hasler said.
“There is a lot of nervous people on both sides at the moment.
“The officials seem to be down on confidence a little bit at the moment and it is probably something we have to address pretty quickly going into finals.”
Waerea-Hargreaves was only sin-binned on Sunday after the bunker reviewed his tackle on Verrills in the lead-up to a try by Titans winger Alofiana Khan-Pereira.
The incident had been missed on-field, as was South Sydney captain Cameron Murray’s high shot on Newcastle forward Tyson Frizell earlier in the round.
“Watching the game, (referee) Chris Butler didn’t sin bin a high shot (by Murray) on Frizell,” Hasler said.
“One or two minutes later the call came from somewhere and the other player (Murray) was sin-binned.”
There have been calls for a summit between coaches, officials and administrators to resolve such issues.
“I have every confidence in Peter (V’landys) and Andrew (Abdo) but it is something we need to address. There is a lot of confusion,” Hasler said.
“We need to be really confident about that part of the game because there were a lot of penalties today and there were a lot of players on report.”
