1) The referee and linesman who both witnessed the event in real time decided it was moderately dangerous and gave a penalty, no yellow card was deemed necessary, nobody was hurt and there was enough doubt to assume Burger was not playing recklessly and it was an accident.
2) The game was full of late and crunching tackles, largely from Samoa, the refined essence of which could best be observed in Brian Lima taking the field, pointing to Andre Pretorius to indicate that he was going to hurt him and then hitting Pretorius so hard and late that Lima managed, somewhat moronically, to concuss himself. None of the Samoan players involved in these tackles were initially cited.
3) A hearing was convened and Schalk Burger was banned for 4 matches by an Australian commissioner who, during the hearing, decided to overrule the referee and linesman both of whom stuck to their original assessment of the situation after being able to review the video footage. They both, incidentally submitted written statements in support of their decision, so sure were they.
4) An appeal was then convened at which the SARU had to fly in its own video equipment as the equipment at the original hearing had been so bad, no clear freeze-frames of the incident could be clearly seen. At this time, the IRB panel had realised the call was harsh and reduced the sentence to 2 matches, implying that they had made the wrong call yet probably needing to save face by sacrificing the player for a few games.
5) Upon realising the huge media circus that was now surrounding the whole citing, the IRB decided to cite a Samoan flank for a dangerous tackle on Percy Montgomery - his sentence, 1 match. Schalk gets 4, he gets 1 for the same offence. That's pretty blatant. Oh and by the way, Terry Willis was the official in both cases and his reason for the discrepancy...the Samoan pleaded guilty! What? So by admitting that you tried to hurt the other guy you get a much reduced sentence compared with stating your innocence and that you were NOT trying to play dirty? This is not nursery school here! Guilty is guilty! No prizes for schloeping the teacher. Come onnnnn.
In the subsequent weeks of the competition, Brian Lima of Samoa once again comes onto the field and delivers a late and dangerous tackle on England's Johnny Wilkinson, the darling of world rugby. The tackle was bad but not nearly as bad as the one he hit South Africa's Pretorius with. This time, not only was he cited but banned for the entire tournament. So Lima does it against SA, he gets nothing, he does it against England he gets banned for the entire world cup. Okaaaay, double standards some might say.
The self-same citing whirlwind, Terry Willis, pops up again in a Samoan-Tongan incident in which a Tongan flank, Hale T Pole gets 1 week after being sent off for a dangerous tackle. Again, 1 week vs 4 weeks. Oh and Pole pleaded guilty as well. He probably brought a shiny aple to the hearing.
The All Black's Carl Hayman was caught TWICE punching an Italian in the face - not even cited! It doesn't get more blatantly dirty than that.
Australia's Drew Mitchell, spear tackle of note against the Welsh - no citing. His coach admitted on camera after the game that he thought he would be cited. Lucky him, especially considering Paul Emery of the USA got a 5 week ban for carbon copy of that tackle against England. Lucky Drew and lucky Australia indeed! Poor unknown USA.
In the same game, Stephen Moore of Australia and Gareth Thomas of Wales both performed tackles more dangerous than Schalk's and neither were cited.
So feeling fairly hard done by, with cries of foul conspiracy, South Africa headed into another match, this time with Tonga, without their star flanker. The match was fairly even-tempered and a close affair seeing SA win 30-25.
Almost 48 hours after the match and can you believe it, another citing for an SA player today...this time for the evil offence of finger biting! Frans Steyn denied it and even went as far as stating to the press that he was shocked, angry at the accusation and that he did not play the game like that. Regardless, he was trawled through the media mill, pronounced a bad boy of rugby and hauled into a hearing this afternoon. Thankfully, he was found not-guilty by virtue of the fact that there was no recorded evidence of the incident AND (here is the kicker!) the Tongan that had accused him suddenly backed off and said perhaps it happened at another time in the game or maybe he had not in fact been bitten. All this after submitting photo's of his hand to the citing commissioner along with his statement. Huh? You is or you ain't bud!
So what is happening here? Are we just unlucky, are we dirty and fans are blind to the facts, is it a conspiracy to see us lose the world cup? Well for what it worth this is what I think...
There is no simple explanation for the lack of citings for players like Drew Mitchell and Carl Hayman. They were caught on camera, they transgressed, everyone saw it and yet they were not cited. Why? Nobody appears to be able to answer this. Most often the justification is that NZ or OZ play clean rugby, SA plays dirty rugby, that's why our players are cited more often. I think that this world cup has highlighted a prejudice, a false impression and the statistics, through a blatant action that has now drawn micro-scrutiny, are finally showing the real story. I don't believe it is a conspiracy in the form of a dark meeting on a stormy night of all nations besides South Africa but what seems clear is there is a perception that SA are a dirty side and this perception is hampering impartial judgement by referees, linesmen and citing officials. You find what you are looking for but you are missing what is in front of you. The FACTS of this world cup have shown that SA is a cleaner rugby playing side than Samoa, Tonga, England, New Zealand, Wales and Australia and yet we are penalised more for it. That's not right. Love us or hate us as you will but lets be fair. There should be consistency, there should be fairness and above all, there should be respect for the player's careers and reputations that are being damaged by these citing Mongols sweeping across Paris and burning a once great game to the ground.
1 comment:
CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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