Newcastle prop Jacob Saifiti avoids suspension for headbutting serial NRL pest Reed Mahoney

Newcastle Knights’ prop Jacob Saifiti is lucky to have avoided suspension after an all-time brain fade in his club’s 32-2 loss to the Bulldogs on Friday that saw him headbutt serial pest Reed Mahoney.

Despite this being Saifiti’s second offence, he will avoid suspension if he accepts a $3000 fine from the NRL Judiciary for an early guilty plea. If he contests and loses, he faces a two-game suspension.

Bulldogs rake Reed Mahoney is known for irritating his opponents, despite his small stature at 5ft 9in. 

‘It’s not like you’re not gonna know that that fella is going to be involved in it. He does it every week,’ Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien said after the match.

‘We need to be better there.’

Mahoney’s tactics provoked Saifiti in the final minute of the game, resulting in the headbutt.

Saifiti took the bait and headbutted Mahoney, getting sinbinned for his trouble but escaping a suspension from the NRL’s Match Review Committee 

As Mahoney attempted to score near the tryline, a scuffle ensued, with a referee intervening: 

‘Boys, boys, boys. Come on. There is a minute to go. Away we go.’ he said.

But Saifiti was seeing the red mist and after exchanging words with the Bulldogs hooker he retaliated with a headbutt.

Commentator Dan Ginnane said: ‘Oooooh! Jacob, Jacob you can’t do that. You cannot do that! Oh my goodness. One of the most unnecessary actions of the year.’ 

‘Reed Mahoney has got into the minds of the Newcastle Knights and it’s going to cost Jacob Saifiti a sin bin here – and he might have a little worrying to do overnight.’

Fellow commentator Cooper Cronk said: ‘With a minute to go on the clock, Saifiti has let his team down with a bad, bad decision. 

‘And the worst thing is what could come of it. It obviously wasn’t a lot of contact but still.’

Mahoney had a previous altercation with Newcastle’s Jack Hetherington in April, receiving a yellow card for inciting the prop forward. He also clashed with Wests Tigers’ Alex Seyfarth the following week.

Mahoney was just happy to break Newcastle’s four-game winning streak and keep the Bulldogs finals hopes alive

Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien said his players needed to be better than taking the bait 

When asked about the incident with Saifiti, Mahoney said, ‘I’m not sure. We’ll enjoy the win and get back Monday. 

‘We’ve got a big game coming up into a bye, so we’ll be looking forward to that.’

O’Brien felt his men had lost some mental sharpness after a bye the previous week and become distracted by the adulation coming their way after four consecutive wins.

‘The thing for now is we’ve got to make sure that we go down (to Melbourne Storm) with a really good mindset, that we can play well, and we need to prepare and train that way,’ he said.

‘We probably need to batten the hatches down and get off social media and don’t read too much what you guys are gonna write. Maybe we were reading too much of that leading up to this one about how good we were going. So now we’ll look inwards and try to fix it.’