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Newcastle Herald
Newcastle Herald
National

David Klemmer: I was hard done by getting sent off against Souths

FIRED UP: Newcastle Knights prop David Klemmer, pictured after getting sin-binned against the Gold Coast a fortnight ago before being sent off against South Sydney on Friday. Klemmer entered an early guilty plea to his grade-one dangerous contact charge and was fined $1000 this week. He is free to play on Saturday. Picture: Jonathan Carroll

I felt pretty hard done by getting sent off on Friday.

I had that scuffle with Souths prop Keaon Koloamatangi beforehand, but he ran with his forearm straight into my face. I obviously didn't like it and came back at him.

I finished the next tackle off and thought it was just a normal tackle, but then Souths skipper Latrell Mitchell took it upon himself to run in and do what he thought he had to do for his teammate.

I thought it was blown way out of proportion.

The referee had seen a couple of incidents and I think he thought that was the best scenario, sending me off. I thought I might get 10 minutes, but when you get sent it's a pretty big deal. It's a serious offence. I've been sin-binned plenty of times before, but never sent off.

As I was walking off the field, I was thinking I might miss a couple of weeks now.

So I was very lucky to escape with a fine.

Latrell's incident with Pasami Saulo, I thought he got off pretty lightly - leading with the forearm and knocking him out. It made it look like it wasn't on purpose, but I thought it was intentional.

And the high shot on Dom Young, that was a bit disappointing as well.

Anyway, I apologised to the boys after the game for being sent off. Coupled with the loss, it was a tough night.

But at the end of the day, sometimes you just can't help it. It was the same against the Gold Coast the week before when I got sin-binned. Those things can just happen. I've been competing pretty hard and our results have been frustrating.

It's easy for people sitting at home to question why I can't control myself. But I've controlled it for many years, sometimes you just can't.

When you're in that environment, playing at that sort of speed - it's hard.

But I'll be better, I'll tuck that side of myself back away.

We were up 16-6 against Souths and let it slip. We have to learn from that.

We know we've got a good side, but it's just not happening for us at the moment. The only thing we can do is train hard and turn up again.

Adam has really got into us this week about the game cycle and knowing how to finish a game. I think having Jayden Brailey back in the starting side will help. You could see when he came on in the second half last week the difference he made. His talk was brilliant and I expect he will be marching us around against Manly.

I love playing at Brookvale, but it's a difficult place to win at - Saturday night, Manly are playing pretty well, we are in for a big game.

We know from playing Manly earlier in the year what they can do, but we also remember what we can do.

We lost 30-6 but were right in that contest and if a couple of calls went our way, it could have been a different result. We've got to make sure we stick together and fight our way through it this time around.

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