Newcastle hooker Danny Buderus has slammed the judiciary process after his impeccable playing record was ignored and his plea for a downgrade thrown out at NRL headquarters on Wednesday night.

Buderus will miss the remainder of the NRL finals series and the early part of the 2007 season after copping a six-match suspension for his lifting tackle on Manly winger Michael Robertson in the dying minutes of Friday night's qualifying final clash at Aussie Stadium.

The Knights rake had been hoping to have a grade three charge reduced to a grade one - which would have resulted in only a one-match ban, but was left infuriated when the three-member judiciary panel was advised by judiciary chairman Paul Conlon to ignore the fact he'd never been suspended during his 10-year playing career.

"Obviously a good record counts for nothing in the end, I'm pretty disappointed," Buderus said.

"I think it has to be looked at."

Buderus' legal team had argued for over 40 minutes to have his record considered by the panel, the two parties going over sections of the judiciary code with a fine tooth comb before Conlon eventually rejected the plea.

"I'm bitterly disappointed, it's been a big week and I'm going to close this chapter and move on," Buderus said.

"Obviously I have to move on and look forward to a long off season.

"We did as good as we could, I was over the moon with my team, they were great."

The loss of Buderus is a major blow to the Knights premiership hopes, the champion rake one of few players in his position to play 80 minutes a game.

Newcastle coach Michael Hagan has brought in Premier League hooker Luke Quigley for Saturday night's semi-final clash against Brisbane at Aussie Stadium, the winner advancing to play the Bulldogs in the preliminary final the following weekend.

The Knights employed the services of a biomechanics expert from Newcastle University to aid with their defence, Dr Saxon White claiming the velocity at which Robertson was travelling and the spinning motion he went into as he made impact with Buderus contributed to the Manly winger eventually landing on his head.

Judiciary counsel Peter Kite argued that Robertson's momentum had been stopped by the time Buderus started lifting him off the ground, saying the one-time Test skipper's actions breached duty of care.

He also advised the panel not to take pity on the Newcastle rake because of the impact of the suspension, with Buderus now rubbed out of the side's finals campaign.

The objective is to achieve consistency for the offence," Kite said.

"You can't put a player's future at risk to make a tackle."

Buderus said he was just looking to stop Robertson's progress and limit the possibility of the winger offloading the ball, with the Sea Eagles down 19-18 at the time and desperately trying to get down the other end of the field.

"I went in to make an effective tackle, I didn't realise the position of Michael Robertson in relation to the tackle," Buderus told the three man panel of former internationals Bob Lindner, Jason Stevens and Darrell Williams.

"It's just a split second thing. All I could control was what I wanted to do."

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