“Accept the punishment for careless, but didn’t deliberately assault” – Mitch Barnett on ‘bash-up’ with Chris Smith

Newcastle Knights forward Mitch Barnett has broken his silence over the controversial brawl with Penrith Panthers forward Chris Smith in the National Rugby League (NRL) match on Saturday. The 27-year-old stressed enough that he did not deliberately try to injure the opponent with the elbow that he was sent off for in his side.

In an interview with Paul Kent via The Daily Telegraph, Barnett acknowledged and accepted the punishment for his “careless”. However, he refrained from “deliberately assaulting someone” during the game.

“The point I want to get across is there is a difference between being deliberate and being careless, and I accept the punishment for careless, but there is no way I went out there to deliberately assault someone,” he said.

“I’ve kept my eyes on the ball and there was a threat of them scoring in the corner so I am going a bit faster than usual,” he explained.

“‘Cluney’ (Adam Clune) was coming out of the line and I had to fill that space. Then out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Chris Smith at the last second and I braced for contact and tried to push through him at the same time.”

“Mitch Barnett has been a bit of a punching bag” – Kent

Reacting to this, Kent went on to defend Barnett on NRL 360, saying the Taree native was doing a ‘check and release’ on decoy runner Smith and revealed that he will likely plead guilty at the judiciary on Tuesday.

“Mitch Barnett has been a bit of a punching bag for the last couple of days… so it’s been a bit of a bash-up on him,” he said.

“I think he’ll go there tomorrow night and plead guilty but the big difference is that he wanted people to know it was a careless incident rather than a malicious incident — which is basically what he’s been accused of by everybody.”