Ferres sorry for tackle

England forward Brett Ferres has issued a public apology for the dangerous tackle on St Helens full-back Jonny Lomax that earned him a five-match ban.

The Huddersfield second rower was sent off 64 minutes into his side's Tetley's Challenge Cup fourth-round tie on Sunday for upending Lomax in the tackle and admitted the grade E offence when he appeared in front of the Rugby League Football's disciplinary panel on Tuesday evening.

"I would just like to publicly apologise to Jonny Lomax for the incident that occurred on Sunday," Ferres said on his Twitter account.

"I would never intentionally put someone in a position that could potentially injure them.

"There was no intent or malice in the tackle and I am glad that Jonny is okay.

"I have accepted my punishment and hopefully we won't see any more incidents in the game like this."

The incident came in the wake of the serious neck injury to Newcastle Knights forward Alex McKinnon in an NRL match against Melbourne in which he was the victim of a similar "spear" tackle.

Huddersfield were leading 16-8 at the time of Ferres' dismissal but went on to lose 17-16 and the player admits his actions cost his side the match.

He added: "I also want to apologise to my Giants team-mates, the staff at the club and all the supporters. We put ourselves in a great position to win the game and I'm sure if I wouldn't have got sent off, we would have won.

"I will be knuckling down and working very hard during my suspension and hope to have a big impact in helping my team on my return."