Bulldogs star faces nervous wait after 'clumsy' incident

Bulldogs star Jacob Preston faces a nervous wait after being placed on report for a trip.

In the early stages of Thursday night's clash with Penrith, the gun back-rower got himself caught wrong-footed when Brad Schneider popped a pass to Mavrik Geyer.

While play was allowed to continue, referee Wyatt Raymond called out Preston at the end of the set and informed him he was on report for the incident.

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Replays showed that Preston did collect Geyer, albeit with very little force.

"It's when they turned that player back on the inside, he stuck a leg out," Andrew Johns said on Nine.

"I think he will be right, that's just a clumsy effort or a reflex."

Earlier in the year, Preston had a number of minor charges that ultimately led to him copping a four-game suspension for a crusher tackle.

Any potential charge could come with a more significant penalty, given his record.

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Canterbury opened the scoring against the under-manned Panthers outfit through Lachlan Galvin mid-way through the first half at Accor Stadium.

The reigning premiers were without 16 regular players, who were all rested by coach Ivan Cleary as they head towards the NRL finals. 

One of the fresh faces in the team, Zac Lipowicz, was soon sin binned for a nasty hip-drop tackle on Matt Burton that left the Dogs five-eighth grimacing in pain.

Lipowicz, who was on debut and started in the second-row, was given his marching orders and left the Panthers down to 12 men.

Burton was cleared to continue despite the brief injury scare, allowing Bulldogs fans to breath a sigh of relief for the second week in a row.

Things went from bad to worse when Luke Sommerton copped a boot to the face from a rampaging Sitili Tupouniua, forcing him from the field for a head injury assessment.

Sommerton was shortly after ruled out of the match due to displaying category one concussion symptoms. 

Preston soon added to Canterbury's lead, backing up in support after Stephen Crichton made a break, finally breaking through some resilient Penrith defence.