UPDATED: Roosters enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves has been slapped with a monster ban for two separate offences from a fiery encounter with the Tigers on Saturday night, effectively ending his season and potentially putting a big dent in 2024.
Waerea-Hargreaves is facing six weeks on the sidelines after being offered two three-week bans, one for a late shot on Apisai Koroisau – for which he was sent to the sin bin – and then another for headbutting Stefano Utoikamanu in the resulting melee.
They’ll be upgraded to four weeks each if he fights the charges at the judiciary and loses.
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Post-game when asked about the hit, Koroisau said he was “feeling all right” but wasn’t willing to divulge many of his thoughts, saying “it is what it is”.
His coach Benji Marshall was more forthright after Koroisau begrudgingly confirmed he was hit in the head.
“He must’ve, he got sin binned for it, the ref saw enough in it to be sin binned, potentially probably a send-off but at the same time that’s the referee’s job to deal with that and to be honest, it didn’t cost us the game,” Marshall said.
The incoming head coach was then asked about the headbutt incident and said Waerea-Hargreaves “crossed the line”.
“It’s hard for Jared, I know him pretty well, he’s got a pretty big head but that’s footy,” he laughed.
“Jared’s one of those players that crosses the line and he turns into this beast or demon, and plays on the edge.
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“I’ve been in a team with him and you love having those blokes in your team but I thought he crossed the line tonight, especially with the hit, but he got what he deserved.”
Roosters coach Trent Robinson said his enforcer simply got the “timing” wrong in the tackle.
“It was a late challenge, it was a bit fiery there at different times when there was challenges, I felt like there was a lot of late challenges tonight and then Jaz, he got it wrong, the timing of that,” he said.
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“But I thought there was not much to it in the end. I thought the scuffle, there was more to it than that. It was late, it should’ve been penalised, shouldn’t have been done but most of it was body, it was all chest and a wild arm there but didn’t contact.”
Robinson was also asked about the headbutt but said “I didn’t see much to it”, before commenting on the aggression of Waerea-Hargreaves and whether his actions are scrutinised differently to other players.
“He’s always going to get scrutinised, that’s really common, we had four guys that got hit late tonight, that went on report but didn’t get penalised and no one will ask about them but Jared does one and the whole world blows up, it’s pretty common,” he said.
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“You want him to be on the edge, and you want him to be in more control, that was a silly challenge, and so knowing that but people make more of it, it’s constant.
“If he or Rads (Victory Radley) does some of the challenges that we saw play on and then get put on report later, usually more happens to them than other people.”
Waerea-Hargreaves will now almost certainly miss the Roosters’ grudge match against South Sydney on Friday night.
Star back Joey Manu is already unlikely to play after he pulled up with a hamstring complaint while Souths will be without Latrell Mitchell due to suspension.
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