‘His head falls into his arm’: BA defends Eels star after Tedesco concussed – and Robbo agrees
Sivo #Sivo
Eels coach Brad Arthur didn’t want to dissect his side’s underwhelming season straight after it ended on Friday night, but he did fire up for one of his players.
Two weeks after the NRL cracked down on high contact, Parramatta’s Maika Sivo was lucky to stay on the field on Friday night in his first game back from a four-game ban when he charged in off his wing and caught James Tedesco high.
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The Roosters skipper was falling but the contact was still high and left him dazed and Sivo was placed on report.
Tedesco was initially ruled to be showing category two symptoms only for that to be upgraded to a category one which means he’ll miss next week.
But Arthur said he’d be stunned if his winger had a case to answer to the match review committee.
“I hope James is okay, but what more can he do? His hands are down beside him and James’ head falls into his arm,” Arthur said.
“He’s worked really hard on trying to get that part of his game right and you can see he’s got a bit gun shy with it because he’s worried about it and I don’t think he’s done anything wrong.
“I’m not taking anything away from James copping contact to the head, but what’s he supposed to do there? He tripped over into him.
Parramatta captain Clint Gutherson added: “You don’t want anyone to have a head knock, it’s the worst part of our game but it is a contact sport and it happens. It’s just footy.”
James Tedesco was concussed against the Eels.Source: Getty Images
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Trent Robinson agreed with Arthur and said there was very little Sivo could have done to prevent the contact.
“To be honest I don’t see any real issue with that,” Robinson said.
“At the time you’re looking at him down going something must have happened and when I looked at it I didn’t think Maika could have done much on that.
“We don’t want to be hit high and James had to come off but I looked at it and was like if that was one of my guys making a tackle it would have been really hard to adjust I thought.”
The clash was deemed a category one concussion which means Tedesco will miss the Roosters’ must-win clash against the Wests Tigers next week.
“He was concussed. He remembers everything but is that enough to play next week? I wouldn’t think so,” Robinson said.
“Next week is critical but you’ve got to treat his health first.”
Parramatta Eels Press Conference | 03:32
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