BREAKING: Souths star learns fate in first hearing of bumper night at NRL judiciary

South Sydney’s finals hopes have taken another hit with experienced forward David Fifita banned for two matches at the NRL judiciary on Tuesday night.

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It leaves them thin in the back row with Tallis Duncan (hamstring) and Cameron Murray (calf) ruled out of Friday’s game against the Storm, with Thomas Fletcher in the mix to replace Fifita on the edge.

Fifita received a grade two dangerous contact charge for an incident involving Raiders forward Hudson Young when the Rabbitohs forward kicked out during a tackle and hit the Blues star in the back of the head early in the second half.

The kick wasn’t penalised on the field but resulted in a charge that would have seen the former Maroons representative banned for a match if he had taken the early guilty plea.

Instead, Fifita pleaded guilty but sought a downgrade at Rugby League Central where panel members Tony Puletua and Paul Simpkins unanimously found him guilty.

Fifita was supported by South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett and football manager Jason Clark, with the experienced Nick Ghabar serving as his defence counsel.

Ghabar argued that Young pushed himself up off the tackle which accentuated the situation and that there was no visible pause and separate move to kick.

He said there was “no conventional kicking action” because there was no planted foot, no deliberate action and no follow through, with no snap back of Young’s head.

Ghabar also pointed out that the referee and touch judge had a clear view of the incident but didn’t penalise it, and used a comparable grade one charge from 2024 when Dragons winger Tyrell Sloan lashed out and kicked Sam Walker in the tackle.

NRL counsel Lachlan Gyles suggested there was no comparison given Sloan was held and was trying to free himself to play the ball which was a far more common case of carelessness.

He argued to the panel that there was an unreasonable risk of injury to Young, the level of carelessness was high and that there was no mitigation given the momentum of the tackle had stopped.

“It’s very hard to justify a movement that shows what you can see on that still. It has to be more than a low level of carelessness,” he said.

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