George Burgess will miss the rest of the regular NRL season after being handed a nine-game ban for his eye gouge last Thursday night.

The three-man panel of Bob Lindner, Mal Cochrane and Dallas Johnson took 30 minutes to give their verdict in a hearing that lasted almost two hours.

Burgess was asked on at least a dozen occasions whether the act was intentional, but swore on his children’s lives that it wasn’t deliberate.