St George Illawarra Dragons' forward Josh McGuire will be looking at a minimum of five weeks on the sidelines to start the 2022 NRL season.
The hard-nosed prop was hit with two high tackle charges from Saturday night's narrow loss to the South Sydney Rabbitohs on the Sunshine Coast.
McGuire's tackles were deemed to be Grade 1 and Grade 2 careless high tackles respectively in the 17th and 66th minute of the game respectively. The second of those landed him ten minutes in the sin bin, although referee Matt Cecchin agreed with him at the time that he simply had nowhere to go as Peter Mamouzelos fell into the tackle.
Regardless, the contact was deemed to be direct to the head of the young South Sydney hooker, earning McGuire a trip off the field.
The Grade 1 offence was earlier in the game, recorded against Tevita Tatola.
The base penalty combined for the two charges was 300 points, which would have earnt him three weeks off, however, with one prior similar offence and two prior non-similar offences in the last two years, McGuire cops a total of 110 per cent loading.
Add his 29 carryover points from past offences, and the early guilty plea points total ends up equalling 530, meaning he will miss the opening five rounds of the 2022 season.
Should he go to the judiciary and fight, but lose on both charges, that penalty would be increased to six weeks.
This isn't McGuire's first long ban of the season, having missed five weeks for a hip drop on Josh Addo-Carr during magic round.
The penalty will seem grossly out of proportion given last week's sickening shot from Latrell Mitchell on Joseph Manu earnt the Souths fullback with a similar record to McGuire just six weeks out of the game after he was charged with a Grade 2 reckless high tackle.
McGuire could well fight the Grade 2 charge, or at the very least attempt to have it downgraded to a Grade 1, which would leave him looking at four weeks out to start 2022 instead of five.
McGuire will make his decision on whether to fight the charge or not by midday on Monday.
The only other charge out of Saturday night's games was on Jeremiah Nanai of the North Queensland Cowboys who was hit with a Grade 1 dangerous throw charge on Sean Keppie. He will escape with just a fine.