Star players reveals what really happened in fiery confrontation with Jackson Hastings

There has been a lot of talk about Jackson Hastings in recent weeks as the former Wigan Warriors and Salford Red Devils star geared up to take on his former club the Wests Tigers with the Newcastle Knights.

There was even talk that he had to leave due to a rift between him and new signing from Wigan John Bateman.

Then after the game itself, which was edged by the Knights in Hastings’ favour, Hastings was caught up in a fiery exchange with two Tigers players stemming from a high tackle during the game.

“You can see Tommy Talau goes up to Jackson Hastings after the interview he just had with us, pushes him in the chest,” Braith Anasta said in Fox League’s coverage of Sunday’s action.

“Klemmer comes up afterwards. The Tigers not too happy with Jackson at all. Not sure if that was warranted or called for. Klemmer giving him an absolute serve. Tensions are high.”

“You don’t see that often, shirt-fronting someone after the game” added Greg Alexander.

You can see the incident here:

Wow!@FOXNRL showing some argy bargy between Klemmer & Talau and Hastings after he finished his TV interview.
Tigers showing more fight after fulltime 🤣 pic.twitter.com/gxR5EbNNUm

— Ross Martin (@RossMartin1960) March 12, 2023

In the interview itself, Hastings addressed the tackle and apologised:

“I honestly didn’t think I got him but he’s bleeding so obviously I did, I’m really sorry to Tommy and I’ll say sorry to him after this, it was a pure accident, there was no malice in it,” Hastings said.

“He came at me and was well within his rights after getting hit like that. So full apologies to Tommy, it was an accident and I’m just glad to get the win and try to stop a try.”

Now the man on the other side of the incident, David Klemmer, has had his say on what happened to The Age:

“There wasn’t really much in it. I could see that Tommy didn’t want to talk about it and some argy-bargy happened. I went over and said, ‘Leave him alone, he doesn’t want to talk to you’.

“That was it. The next thing there was a security guard and everyone is jumping in. Then he started mouthing off. It wasn’t like it was a melee … Then the security guard came. It was a bad scene.”

Adding intrigue to the confrontation, Hastings and Klemmer swapped sides during the summer. However, Klemmer is adamant there is no history between the pair.

“I don’t know him from a bar of soap,

“Do I just watch and let them go at it? Do I just watch them throw it down? That’s what everyone wants.

“They want to see that. What do you do? I wasn’t even upset, I just said, ‘That’s enough. You won the footy game, just walk away’.

“Obviously, it’s blown up and people have their own views. At the end of the day, he got the win, he should have just walked away when Tommy said he didn’t want to talk to him, just accepted it.

“[Chuckling] Maybe I just should have let them have it. What do you do?”