The Sharks have suffered a major blow with veteran lock Dale Finucane facing up to three weeks on the sidelines after he was charged for a dangerous throw in his side’s emphatic 52-16 win over the Dragons.
Finucane was placed on report 19 minutes into the contest for a lifting tackle on Blake Lawrie that led to a Tautau Moga try from the ensuing set.
Interim Dragons coach Ryan Carr said “that’s footy” and had no issue with the decision for Finucane to stay on the field, but he’s now facing a 2-3 week ban after receiving his third charge of the season.
The Sharks forward was suspended for three games for a hip-drop tackle against the Warriors in round 5 and will miss the next two matches if he takes the early guilty plea this time around for the grade 1 offence.
“I didn’t really see it on the big screen, but hopefully not,” he said on Thursday night when asked if he had anything to worry about.
“I’ll have to look at the footage of it, but it’s hard to comment on it because I haven’t really seen the footage.”
Losing Finucane would continue a frustrating few months for the Sharks who have had to deal with injuries to key middles Toby Rudolf, Royce Hunt and Braden Hamlin-Uele.
Rudolf is set to make his return via NSW Cup this weekend having not played since round 5, while Hunt is expected to miss another month with an ankle injury.
Hamlin-Uele failed to finish Thursday night’s game due to a rib injury that he suffered in the opening play when Lawrie smashed him from the kick-off.
He was able to play on but didn’t return in the second half as Finucane and cult hero Tom Hazelton did most of the damage through the middle.
“It was off the kick-off and it looked like a shoulder charge to me,” Fitzgibbon said of Hamlin-Uele’s injury.
“We’re not sure if it’s rib cartilage, broken ribs or something like that, but he finished that stint which is kind of weird because he finished OK but he knew he had something.
“It wasn’t that bad but it got worse at halftime, so we couldn’t get back him back after halftime.
“We’ve been turning them over a little bit, but I think they’ve been performing strongly the guys that (have come in). Everyone’s sharing the workload.
“Tommy was strong again and I think Dale has had his best two games for the club over the last two weeks.”
