Waerea-Hargreaves and Burgess suspended

South Sydney captain Sam Burgess will miss the first week of the NRL finals after he was hit with a contrary conduct charge for pulling the hair of Sydney Roosters winger Billy Smith.

Roosters prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves has also been rubbed out for a week after his and Burgess’ poor disciplinary records came back to haunt them.

Waerea-Hargreaves was charged with a grade-one high tackle for his shot on Souths prop Liam Knight in Thursday night’s 16-10 loss.

Both players have copped one-game bans due to weighting and carry-over points.

They were both ineligible for fines because the pair already had two guilty charges this season.

Burgess controversially had a careless tackle charge downgraded at the judiciary last month and escaped with a fine.

But that incident means the Rabbitohs enforcer will miss a potential rematch against the Roosters next week.

The teams will meet in a qualifying final next weekend if Canberra lose to the Warriors on Saturday.

Waerea-Hargreaves is out because he took an early guilty plea to a dangerous contact charge in round 19.

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