Cronulla hooker Tevita Latu's career is in tatters after he was charged with assault and sacked from the NRL club.

Latu was likely to be barred from the game for a lengthy period, with NRL chief executive David Gallop saying the league would not re-register the 24-year-old, preventing him from signing with another club.

Latu allegedly broke a 19-year-old woman's nose in an incident on Monday morning. He later admitted to the club he had punched the woman.

Cronulla chief executive Greg Pierce told the New Zealander at 5.30pm on Tuesday his two-year contract had been terminated.

As the NRL is particularly sensitive about its players' treatment of women, he could be out of the game for years.

"Where there's an incident which is so abhorrent to community standards it's important that strong action's taken, that's what Cronulla have done tonight," Gallop said.

"If there was to be an application to register the player with another club we would not accept that registration.

Gallop said it was "hard to imagine a time" when the NRL would consider registering Latu again.

"I would have thought it would be a matter of years rather than months," he added.

Pierce said it was a tough, but the correct decision to make.

"I don't think we had any other option," Pierce said.

"It's still tough to terminate a guy's livelihood and take away from him what he does best, but it's just unacceptable behaviour.

"We have a duty to the players, the club and the game.

"To his credit, Tevita didn't argue the decision, he was very apologetic and very remorseful."

Latu is believed to be considering returning to his native Auckland.

"I am sorry for any embarrassment caused to the Sharks and to the NRL," he said in a prepared statement.

"I have let down myself and my teammates with my poor behaviour on Sunday night.

"I should never have put myself in that situation by being where I was at that time of night."

Pierce spoke with the woman, Brooke Peninton, who claims Latu punched her in the face outside a service station in Cronulla at around 3.30am on Monday.

"He told me pretty much exactly the same story," Pierce said.

Pierce said Cronulla would pay Peninton's medical expenses and any costs incurred from being off work.

He said he was angered by the second embarrassing public incident involving Sharks players this month.

"I just shook my head. I was very disappointed, very frustrated, a bit cranky, a bit angry," Pierce said.

Latu's incident comes three weeks after Sharks forwards Darren Mapp and Luke Harlen were fined for drunken behaviour in a Circular Quay hotel.

But Pierce was sure there wasn't a growing culture of anti-social behaviour at the club.

"I don't think there is. This wasn't a club thing, it was an individual player and there weren't any other players there," he said.

Latu joined Cronulla from the NZ Warriors this season and had been out drinking following Sunday's loss to the Bulldogs.

Pierce said he would speak with senior players and management about the prospect of a curfew or alcohol restrictions, which he admitted would be hard to impose.

Peninton told police she was punched once in the face and fell to the ground after she and Latu became involved in an altercation while talking outside the BP service station on The Kingsway.

Latu was arrested at 11.30pm on Monday night and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He will face Sutherland Local Court on June 15.

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