Jacob Saifiti arrives at Newcastle Local Court on Monday [Source: AAP]
Former Fiji Bati rep and Newcastle Knights prop Jacob Saifiti was on a drunken bender but denies being aggressive before he was punched in the face by Dane Cordner, the older brother of Australian captain Boyd, outside a pub.
Dane Cordner has pleaded not guilty to causing reckless grievous bodily harm to Saifiti outside the Greenroof Hotel in Hamilton in late 2018.
Cordner claims he was acting in self-defence.
Stuff.co reports 23-year-old Saifiti told the Newcastle Local Court yesterday that he’d started drinking at a wine tasting event at 1pm and visited a number of hotels before being knocked to the ground by Cordner 13 hours later.
He broke his ankle in the process.
The prop said on a scale of one to 10 – where 10 was staggering drunk – he was about a five or six when the altercation happened after 2am on December 2nd.
Saifiti told the court he’d been grabbed by the throat by another man outside the pub but didn’t touch him when security separated them.
He claimed he then confronted the same man a short time later to tell him not to grab him again when Cordner pushed him in the chest.
