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Sport Nation
State of Origin II: 9pm tonightThe “disgraceful” MRO decision King and Cornes cannot get behind
Jaiden Sciberras • June 15th, 2026 7:10 pm
Paul Curtis has been pinned with a three-week suspension after a tackle left West Coast’s Hamish Davis concussed.
During North Melbourne’s win out west, Curtis laid a hard tackle on Davis as the defender tried to step past, wrapping both arms around the defender before using his momentum to take him to ground.
In what was a technically sound tackle, Davis unfortunately hit his head on the grass, leaving him concussed and ruling him out of the game.
Curtis was handed a three-match ban for the tackle, with the MRO grading the incident as careless, severe impact and high contact.
Having rewatched the incident, Kane Cornes and David King far from agreed with the MRO’s decision.
“The biggest loser of the weekend might be Paul Curtis,” Cornes told SEN Fireball.
“I was just rewatching the three-game suspension for his tackle, and he is incredibly hard-done-by, I will say that.”
“Again,” King said, referring to Curtis’ tackle over Port’s Josh Sinn in 2025 that also saw him banned for three weeks.
Cornes: “Again. He gets off this.”
King: “Does he? He couldn’t go in with much confidence, could he?”
Cornes: “What did he do wrong? What did he actually do wrong?”
King: “I didn’t think he did a lot wrong last time and he still got three.”
Cornes: “Davis actually has both hands that he can fall on.
“Usually, these ones are when an arm has been held and the player being tackled can’t brace their fall. Davis actually could brace his fall, just a really unlucky incident.
“I don’t know… you can’t be missing three games for that. It would be disgraceful if that is upheld.”
King: “To me, arms pinned is right in. His arms were tackled, but they weren’t pinned.”
Cornes: “They were free to brace the fall. Arms pinned, to me, is when you’ve got no safety net to brace. You can’t put a forearm out, you can’t put one arm out to brace for your fall.”
King: “How does that meet the criteria?”
North Melbourne are set to challenge the decision at Tribunal on Monday night.
