Dale Finucane has been found guilty of dangerous contact on Stephen Crichton after challenging a Grade 3 charge at the judiciary on Tuesday evening.
The Cronulla Sharks' middle forward was slapped with a Grade 3 charge after what appeared to be a head collision with Crichton during Saturday night's loss to the Penrith Panthers, and was set to miss three weeks of action.
Following the decision by the judiciary to find Finucane guilty, he and his legal team challenged the grading of the decision and were successful in having the charge downgraded to a Grade 2 offence.
That means a one-week reduction for Finucane, who will now only miss two weeks of football.
Finucane could have accepted a two-week suspension with an early guilty plea, but opted to fight at the judiciary.
The incident at the time wasn't penalised on field by referee Ashley Klein, or on review by Grant Atkins in the bunker, however, footage did appear to show Finucane's shoulder making contact with Crichton's chin as he went wildly into the tackle, a swinging arm after first contact narrowly avoiding hitting Crichton.
The New South Wales Blues centre had his ear sliced open by the incident and required surgery.
In front of a panel comprising Justice Geoff Bellew, including former players Dallas Johnson and Bob Lindner, evidence was presented for more than an hour by both sides, before the panel spent 25 minutes deliberating the evidence.
Under questioning, Finucane said he never felt his shoulder make contact with Crichton's face.
"I felt the contact with the left side of my face make contact with the left side of Stephen Crichton’s face and that’s the only contact I felt," Finucane said.
"I didn’t feel any contact with my shoulder and his face."
Represented by Martin Ghabar, the Finucane camp made the point that Crichton had "dipped" into the tackle and Finucane could not have avoided the contact at that point in time.
Finucane further explained the tackle, suggesting it was never his intention to have a head clash caused.
"The objective was to limit the amount of metres they could make on the field by getting to the player that was isolated," Finucane said.
"It’s not standard tackling to try and do that and as I said it wasn’t my intention to make head to head contact. But the pivot motion and lowering of the leg by Stephen Crichton led to the collision."
The NRL's prosecution Patrick Knowles challenged the judiciary that the tackle was made in a careless manner.
"The question for you members of the panel is whether or not player Finucane executed the tackle in a careless manner," he said.
"The tackle was conducted in a careless manner because of the force, because of the fact that the contact was to the head, and because the risk of injury is high."
Gabhar meanwhile retorted, saying the judiciary shouldn't find Finucane guilty because of the outcome, and reminded the judiciary that there was no referee incident report.
"What you should not do in my respectful submission is look at it retrospectively because of the outcome. You should not find a player guilty because of the outcome, a laceration to player Crichton's ear. You should look at the tackle for what it is," Gabhar said.
"Every player who goes out on to the field accepts that an accidental head clash us a rush of playing the game. In my submission the contact here is not illegal."
"You will note that there is no referee incident report in front of you. The referee saw this as nothing more than the head clash, which is an accepted risk of playing rugby league."
Finucane will miss games against the Rabbitohs and Dragons.
