Hall shoulders grunt GLENN Hall will again be tasked with providing extra grunt to the North Queensland Cowboys ranks as the club loses one of its key hardmen for Saturday's clash against the Canberra Raiders. 
Prop Ashton Sims is set to miss this weekend's game after being hit with a grade two careless high tackle charge following a first-half hit on Brisbane Broncos' prop Ben Hannant during last week's 12-0 win against the Cowboys' Queensland rivals.
Cowboys' officials are expected to contest the charge but only to have it downgraded to a grade one rating.
The Cowboys still have quality beef in the form of star State of Origin enforcers Matt Scott and James Tamou to deal with a hulking Raiders pack, but Sims' explosive aggression off the bench will be missed in what should be a very physical contest.
"We're coming up against a big pack and Basher (Sims) is one of our big guys who goes forward and he's nice and aggressive," Hall said, before throwing a cheeky barb at the Gerringong product. "He's a player you like to have against a side like Canberra, but he can get a week off to think about what he's done."
Hall did a superb job lifting the load from North Queensland's Origin contingent last week by playing 66 minutes against the Broncos in one of the fastest NRL games ever.
In further typical form, Hall made no errors and racked up 84m from 12 hit-ups.
"(The body) is still a bit sore actually, it was quite a fast game ... one of the fastest games I've played in," Hall said.
"It was pretty physical too but although the body's sore I was really happy to come away with that win.
"Everything that we'd worked on and spoke about that we wanted to fix and really address ... we did really well."
Cowboys general manager of football Peter Parr said the club would decide this morning whether to contest the grading of Sims' charge.
Sims has 63 carry-over points to his name having committed a non-similar offence in the past two years.
If Sims fought the grade two charge and lost, he would incur 150 points, and with the added 63 carry-over points would spend two weeks on the sideline.
He will miss one week regardless by pleading guilty to the grade two.
"I will have a discussion with Ashton and the coach (Neil Henry) and we'll make a decision tomorrow," Parr said yesterday.
"But the best we can hope for is a downgrade I think - we would be starting to plan that he won't be playing this weekend."
Parr said the Cowboys also had to bear in mind the long-term repercussions of Sims pleading guilty to a grade two charge.
"A grade two stays with you for two years, where as a grade one goes after 12 months, so we need to take that into account," he said.
Source: Townsville Bulletin
Topic: Cowboys Set to Lose Key Prop for Clash With Canberra
