Verrills challenging grading at judiciary in bid to avoid ban
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Sydney Roosters hooker Sam Verrills will contest his high tackle charge at the NRL judiciary on Tuesday night in a bid to be cleared for Friday's semi-final with Manly.
Verrills has entered an early guilty plea for a careless high tackle charge by the match review committee but is seeking a downgrade of the charge to receive a fine of $1150 and escape suspension.
If he is found guilty at the panel, Verrills will be sidelined for two matches and he would need the Roosters to qualify for the grand final in order to play again this year.
His teammate Jared Waerea-Hargreaves - no stranger to the judiciary himself with a number of successful challenges in recent years - said he believed there was a strong case for a downgrade.
"We're obviously going to go tomorrow night and fight," Waerea-Hargreaves said.
"You can clearly see by the footage there was no intent there so I feel like he's got a good case.
"It's his first time going to judiciary. Being a young guy and a bit of a cleanskin he was pretty nervous."
The veteran prop said his only real advice to Verrills was to tell the truth.
"I said be honest and be clear and go in there being positive and knowing all well he'd done everything he could in the heat of the game," he added.
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Halfback Lachlan Lam said Verrills was vital to the team's chances - he made 37 tackles while playing all 80 minutes against Gold Coast, meaning the Roosters don't need to carry a back-up hooker on the bench.
"He's a key member of our spine and I think we're going to need him going forward," Lam said.
"He's normally a pretty good boy, Sammy, so it's different to see him in troubled waters but fingers crossed he can get out of that."
The Roosters will be the underdogs when they take on Manly in Mackay on Friday night.
The incident in question was a 36th-minute tackle on Titans centre Brian Kelly during Saturday night's one-point win in Townsville.
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