Keary expresses regret over Kaufusi incident

Roosters five-eighth Luke Keary says he feels bad about the swinging arm that forced Storm forward Felise Kaufusi off in their preliminary final meeting on Saturday night.

Keary appeared to take exception to Kaufusi's fend to his face and responded with a hair pull then an aggressive tackle. Kaufusi was taken for a head injury assessment, which he failed, and took no further part in the match.

The 25th-minute incident earned the Storm a penalty but was not placed on report, however Keary still faces a nervous wait to see if his name ends up on the match review committee's charge sheet. After his side's 14-6 win, he said he just hoped the Kangaroos star was OK.

"Yeah, I actually feel really bad," Keary said.

"I didn't mean to knock him out or anything like that. I hope he's okay. I haven't spoken to him yet, but I hope he's OK."

Keary added he had not yet given any thought to possible consequences from the MRC, and also shrugged away questions about the hair pull. "I don't know. I think I was just trying to grab him," Keary added.

"I don't really want to joke about it until he's healthy. But yeah, it is what it is."

The other cloud over Keary this week revolves around his troublesome ankle, which restricted his training during the week and had him noticeably limping late in the contest.

"It's all right. It's a little bit sore, but as expected," Keary said.

"I had a couple of runs on it [through the week] but it was just a bit sore. We knew I was always going to play. We just knew we had to manage it in a certain way."

He said he did limited training away from the team on the Thursday session to avoid undue stress on the ankle but completed the full captain's run on Friday.

"I've had it before so I'm not a stranger to it," he said.

"Just that last five minutes, I just came down a bit funny on it and I knew it was going to be sore at the end there. But to be honest, I didn't feel it too much at all through the game."

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