J’maine Hopgood banned after Parramatta’s horror loss
Jasper Bruce |
The pain of Parramatta’s horror round-one loss is set to reverberate into next week as J’maine Hopgood received a one-game ban for his high shot on Melbourne’s Alec MacDonald.
In the first set of the Eels’ 52-4 thrashing from the Storm, referee Todd Smith sent Hopgood to the sin bin for making direct shoulder contact with MacDonald’s head.
A medicab was initially called onto the field at AAMI Park but MacDonald managed to regain his footing before being sidelined from the remainder of Thursday’s game with his head knock.
On Friday, the match review committee charged Hopgood with a grade-two careless high tackle, meaning he will miss the Eels’ round-two clash against Brisbane with an early guilty plea.
The Queensland representative risks also missing the following match against St George Illawarra by taking his case to the judiciary.
It’s a bitter post-script to the Eels’ biggest defeat under Jason Ryles, who conceded at full-time losing Hopgood so early had contributed to the Eels’ capitulation.
“We didn’t get to the ends of our sets like we planned to, then we had one in the bin, then fatigue grew,” Ryles said.
“Then after half-time, we just fell away and basically spent our whole half camped down our end on the back of errors.”
Parramatta’s middle-forward rotation struggled to keep up once the Storm began rolling and will now be down a key player in Hopgood for a tough clash with the Broncos.
Sam Tuivaiti is a leading contender to join the Eels’ starting side in place of Hopgood or Ryles could shift Jack Williams from the back row into the middle.
AAP