Tino Fa’asuamaleaui could find himself in hot water with the match review committee after he was penalised for a shoulder charge on Tevita Pangai Jr.
And the Titans captain himself was eye gouged as simmering tensions exploded in a fiery contest in Sydney.
Having just got on the park off the bench, Pangai Jr received the kick-off following the Bulldogs‘ third try and lined up to run straight at the Titans captain, who responded by not making much of an attempt to tackle him.
In commentary for Fox Sports, league great Steve Roach said he “loves it when players go after each other”.
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“He picked him out too – ran straight at Tino. Was that a shoulder charge? There weren’t a lot of arms involved.”
Fa’asuamaleaui was penalised for the hit, but wasn’t put on report by referee Ben Cummins.
Pangai Jr may have been targeting Fa’asuamaleaui having last week called him out on his Origin III antics against Matt Burton.
“I wasn’t happy about what I saw. I love Burto and I don’t like seeing that stuff happen to him,” Pangai Jr said last week.
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It’s likely Fa’asuamaleaui was fired up, too, having minutes earlier accused Bulldogs forward Corey Waddell of eye-gouging.
Fa’asuamaleaui came out of the tackle gesturing to Cummins, who referred the appeal to the Bunker. Replays clearly showed Waddell’s hands across Tino’s face, but there was no apparent gouging motion.
“I don’t think he’s tried to eye gouge him as such, he didn’t try to dig his finger in there,” Roach said.
“But it’s bad, it’s a bad look. Around the eyes, not a good place to start.”
Referee Ben Cummins put Waddell on report as he warned “don’t go there”.
Fa’asuamaleaui was later asked about the incident.
“It’s just footy… sometimes your hand goes somewhere you don’t know where it is,” he said, defending the actions of Waddell.
“It just happened to be on my forehead, and then sort of hit my eye. But it was accidental, that’s footy.”
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