NRL: Roosters deny Sa slapped girlfriend

Setaimata Sa has been charged with assaulting a police officer. Photo / Getty Images

The Sydney Roosters have rejected reports that Kiwis international Setaimata Sa assaulted his girlfriend before his arrest on Sunday as his NRL career hangs by a thread.

The Roosters released a statement yesterday after the Sydney Morning Herald reported Sa slapped his English girlfriend twice across the face, according to witnesses, during the late-night incident which sees him facing four charges, including assaulting a police officer.

The Roosters said the report was incorrect, after club officials read the police statement of facts and spoke to Sa's girlfriend Claire Sweeney.

"Claire vehemently denies that Sa ever has, or ever would, hit her, nor does the police report indicate that they witnessed or that anyone else witnessed Sa slapping Claire," the statement said.

Sa, 21, remains suspended indefinitely from club activities until the Roosters board decides his fate.

The paper reported Sa started drinking at 2.30pm at a Sydney hotel on Sunday as he and friends celebrated Sweeney's 32nd birthday.

When the gathering moved to the Coogee Bay Hotel about 9pm, Sa was allegedly refused entry because he was too intoxicated.

The couple had a verbal argument which became physical, the paper reported, before police were called.

Sa allegedly grabbed an iron gate and slammed it backwards so it struck a police officer, and put his fist though a window, before he was arrested and taken to Maroubra police station.

Sa will appear in Waverley Local Court on September 23 charged with assaulting police, resisting arrest, malicious damage and failure to leave a licensed premises.

He faces the sack from the club and an uncertain playing future, after a spate of Roosters alcohol-related incidents this year and his previous brush with the law.

In February he was sentenced to 250 hours community service by a Wollongong magistrate for fracturing a man's jaw in a street fight.

Sa claimed he was acting in self-defence and his lawyer appealed against the conviction and sentence, which is yet to be heard.

NRL chief executive David Gallop said he was "obviously disappointed" at yet another off-field incident but was comfortable with the Roosters' handling of it.

"I think they are certainly working on providing us with as much detail as they can," Gallop said. Sa, who made his name with the Papanui club in Christchurch, made his NRL debut for the Roosters in 2006, and last year had his contract extended until 2012.

The Samoan-born, Christchurch-raised utility played four tests for the Kiwis last year but was hampered by a shoulder injury during their victorious World Cup campaign.

He was recently named in the Kiwis' 45-man squad for the end-of-year Four Nations tournament.

- NZPA