Gold Coast Titans captain and Queensland Maroons middle forward Tino Fa'asuamaleaui will face a nervous wait for the match review committee's findings on Sunday morning after he was placed on report for a chicken wing on Saturday afternoon.
The incident came with just seven minutes to go in the ultimately losing effort against the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who took out the contest 30 points to 16.
With the Rabbitohs holding a 20-point lead and heading back onto the attack, Tevita Tatola took a run which moved the men from Redfern inside of 20 metres from the line.
While the intent on the arm of Tatola didn't appear intentional from Fa'asuamaleaui, the Titans' captain seemed to hook his arm inside of Tatola's before dragging it away from his body.
Referee Adam Gee immediately stopped play to award a penalty to South Sydney and, after a word with senior review official Chris Butler in the bunker, elected to place the Titans' captain on report.
It means he will now face a nervous wait for the match review committee to come to a decision, with the "chicken wing" type tackle often viewed incredibly poorly when placed under the forensic lens.
The saving grace for the club captain is that with a Grade 1 charge, he would only face a fine of $1000 with an early guilty plea.
Given it's his first offence of the season, a Grade 2 or Grade 3 charge would see him face one or two matches respectively with an early guilty plea.
Fa'asuamaleaui's name will also have its first strike against it for the next 12 months, with the NRL's judiciary code working so that the more offences a player has on their record, the worse the penalties to be served are.
In what was an abysmal afternoon for the Titans, Fa'asuamaleaui was at his usual high standards after coming off the bench a tick over half an hour into the game, ultimately ending up with two tries, 177 metres and 26 tackles in just 46 minutes.
The MRC findings will be handed down on Sunday morning for all of Saturday's games.
