Buderus suspended for six weeks

Newcastle Knights hooker Danny Buderus tonight had his bid to have a dangerous throw charge downgraded rejected by the NRL judiciary. He was suspended for six weeks and will miss the rest of the NRL finals series.

Buderus was seeking to have the ban reduced to only one match and have a grade three dangerous throw charge reduced to a grade one.

The Newcastle rake was charged after being placed on report for a lifting tackle on Manly winger Michael Robertson in the latter stages of Friday night's Newcastle v Manly qualifying final at EnergyAustralia Stadium. The match saw the Knights turnaround a 12-0 half time deficit to run out 25-18 winners.

"I went in to make an effective tackle, I didn't realise the position of Michael Robertson in relation to the tackle," Buderus told the three man panel of former internationals Bob Lindner, Jason Stevens and Darrell Williams.

"If I had a chance to change that I would have.

"It's just a split second thing. All I could control was what I wanted to do."

The hearing lasted more than two hours as the judiciary deliberated over Buderus' favourable record throughout his 10-year career.

But judiciary counsel Peter Kite argued that Buderus had breached duty of care and advised the panel not to be swayed by the impact of the suspension and that Buderus would miss the finals series.

"The objective is to achieve consistency for the offence," Kite said.

"You can't put a player's future at risk to make a tackle."