Parramatta Eels star Semi Radradra will be available for selection when the new NRL season kicks off in early March after a hearing into alleged domestic violence was adjourned until 2 May.
Radradra, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of common assault against his former partner, will be free to play at least the first nine rounds of the new season.
The Eels open their campaign at Manly on 5 March.
A third allegation that Radradra kicked Perina Ting in the stomach when she was pregnant has been dropped.
Parramatta local court heard on Monday that Radradra had punched Ting in the face during an argument, then afterwards confessed to their pastor “I used my hands on her”.
A tearful Ting said Radradra punched her and also pushed her against a wall, knocking her unconscious, in two separate assaults in 2014 and 2015. She said Radradra punched her at their western Sydney unit in November 2014 after she smashed his phone against the wall during an argument.
“I was shocked,” said Ting, who began seeing Radradra in Fiji in 2012. “I could see the stars.”
She said she locked herself in the toilet, crying, and Radradra rang his pastor and asked him to come over. When the pastor arrived the rugby league player confessed to the assault, saying in Fijian “I used my hands on her”, Ting said.
After speaking with the couple the pastor advised, “this is your family you should love them” and read some bible verse, she told the court.
Ting said Radradra pushed her against a wall at their home in April 2015 after an argument about his sister bullying her on Facebook.
“I didn’t know what was happening until I woke up after a couple of minutes then I realised he was standing over me with a cup of water,” she said.
Afterwards Radradra cried and apologised and promised not to do it again, she said. She said she didn’t report the assaults until June 2016 because she was “in fear”.
She also accused Radradra of failing to pay her $300 a week that he’d agreed to following their separation.
Under cross-examination by Radradra’s barrister, Murugan Thangaraj SC, Ting admitted to sending the NRL star a series of abusive text messages accusing him of lying and cheating after they split up.
“God is going to pay you for your deeds!! Stop praying about us, just pray for yourself, liar, cheater, womaniser,” she texted Radradra in May 2016.
Ting agreed Radradra had never sworn at her or threatened her in his text messages to her, and that he’d sent money to her family in Fiji.
