Warrington Wolves Sam Burgess has explained that Sam Powell was remorseful of the tackle he committed on Tesi Niu, which it’s since been revealed may well end the Leigh Leopards centre’s season.
Powell was sent to the sin bin for the hip drop tackle on Niu, an incident that pundit Jon Wilkin hit out at as he urged for an eight-match ban.
In reality, Powell was banned for three matches but the cost to Leigh and Niu is far more significant with Adrian Lam admitting that the centre’s season could be done due to the MCL injury that he has sustained.
Immediately after the match, Burgess had hit out at the fact Powell was sin binned when Catalans’ Guillermo Aispuro-Bichet had avoided such action a week prior for what he believed was a similar tackle.
Speaking on Tuesday to BBC Radio Merseyside, Burgess moved to clarify his feelings and acknowledge that the tackle was an ‘ugly’ one.
“It was a bad tackle, don’t get me wrong. The tackle was ugly,” Burgess admitted.
“There’s no way Sam’s meant to put Tesi in any bad position. It’s just not in his nature. These things do happen. When he watched it back, he was remorseful about that and we hope Tesi is okay.
“It was the right call to be penalised, it was the right call that he served some time for the tackle, he put him in a different position, we all accept that. I just think the inconsistency with the fact one was ten minutes and the other was not.”
What Adrian Lam said about Warrington Wolves hooker’s tackle
Leigh head coach Adrian Lam has also had his say on the matter, confirming that whilst Powell has not directly contacted the club, he’s spoken with some Leopards players with Lam also defending the character of the player he coached at Wigan.
“I think he’s very close to some of the players in our squad and they’ve said the same thing, how disappointed he is,” Lam explained.
“Sam is a great guy. I coached him at Wigan there for a long time and he was one of our leaders there and a champion bloke. I’m sure it’s not by intent that that’s happened.
“Sadly, it looks like it’s going to be an incident that puts a player out for the rest of the season and that’s just the consequence of that action. That’s the bottom line to it, there’s no controversy over it or pointing the finger.
“It’s sad and I think he’s got three weeks suspension but for us, Tesi’s been unbelievable since come back. It’s going to be a massive loss for us.”
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