And they think the refs are blind!
Roar Pro By Wally James, 1 Jul 2009 Wally James is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- british and irish lions, Burger, International Rugby, Peter de Villiers, Rugby Union, Springboks
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The Boks coach said a lot of good things in his after-match speech: “Eye-gouging is something that we as a team, and especially me, will never condone. Along with biting, head-butting and spear-tackling – all those things that don’t belong in the game”.
“I am against anything that is not in the spirit of the game.”
And …
“But we would never ever encourage anybody to be part of anything negative or bringing the game into disrepute. We want to promote the game among our youth. We want this game to be the biggest nation-building tool there ever can be. By encouraging stuff like that then we are fighting a lost cause. I would never, ever encourage it.”
But then he said …
“Let me tell you, if you look at the footage properly and you know the man you are working with properly, then you can see why I said it is not a yellow card.”
What footage was he looking at? Not the one I saw.
He was right about it not being a yellow card – it was a red one. Knowing the man has nothing to do with what the footage showed. It was blatant thuggery.
I suspect Burger is a good sort of a bloke. Plays hard, cops knocks and is the type who will be the first to buy a beer for his opposing number after the game. But in this instance he made a very bad mistake.
De Villiers appears to be as blind to that as Bryce Lawrence was when he said, “A yellow card at least”.
It’s not just refs who are blind sometimes.
Recommend this story.
July 1st 2009 @ 10:50am
USRugbyFan said | July 1st 2009 @ 10:50am | Report comment
Peter de Villiers is Peter de Villiers, what do you expect from him? I honestly don’t think the guy has any social skills whatsoever, so he may or may not have been endorsing what Burger did, but he was definitely trying to stick up for his player.
July 1st 2009 @ 11:08am
Who Needs Melon said | July 1st 2009 @ 11:08am | Report comment
PdV said “if you look at the footage properly”…
THAT’S what we’re all doing wrong. We don’t know how to LOOK properly. How stupid of us.
July 1st 2009 @ 11:31am
Mark said | July 1st 2009 @ 11:31am | Report comment
“Bryce Lawrence was when he said, “A yellow card at least”. ” OK, we’ve got an assistant ref (Linesman) who not only spots something but advises Yellow or worse – what the heck is wrong with that.
Is it me or is just that the BL supporters have to find someone to blame other than their team not being quite good enough ? They got thrashed in NZ & apparently it was all due to one guy being taken out late.
What really cracks me up is some people expect PDV to stop talking gobbledegook, that’s like expecting a SA supporter to admit the 1/2 the AB’s were actually poisoned before the 95 final !
“
July 1st 2009 @ 1:06pm
katzilla said | July 1st 2009 @ 1:06pm | Report comment
Mark,
Im sure the fact that he is a Kiwi plays no small part in the blame.
July 1st 2009 @ 3:44pm
Jason said | July 1st 2009 @ 3:44pm | Report comment
DeVilliers is a joke. Seriously that guys got some verbal diarohea. He makes absolutely no sence half the time. I get the impression he knows absolutely nothing about rugby and only got the job because of his skin colour. Some of his statements and tactical sustitutions defy belief.
July 3rd 2009 @ 7:53pm
Ben J said | July 3rd 2009 @ 7:53pm | Report comment
Schalk Burger has been cleared of eye goughing.
July 3rd 2009 @ 8:00pm
AndyS said | July 3rd 2009 @ 8:00pm | Report comment
Or, more correctly, Alan Hudson said:
“a. I do not find this to be an intentional act on the part of Burger. I accept Burger’s evidence that he did not intend to make contact with the eye area of Lions No.11.
b. In my view his actions were clearly reckless. That is he knew or should have known that there was a risk that his actions could result in an act of foul play – that is contact with the eye area of Lions No.11.
c. While there was no significant injury to the eye of Lions No.11, the contact could not be described as simply trivial. It is clear on the report of the Lions doctor that there was initially redness and swelling about the left eyelid and there was some short lived tearing and blurred vision.
d. I am unable to conclude that there was eye gouging in the sense of a ripping or aggressive intrusion of the eye area, but I do conclude that there was contact in the left eye area which while not serious in the result, cannot be described as insignificant.”
Not exactly cleared, but gives some insight as to why it was only 8 weeks.
July 3rd 2009 @ 8:49pm
Ben J said | July 3rd 2009 @ 8:49pm | Report comment
Er, yes he has been cleared of gouging but found guilty on a lesser charge.
It is still very very significant though, it proves he was not cynical or malicious, traits of which he has been widely accused of on this website. No one argues the fact that is was wrong, dangerous, reckless or aggressive. Parisse also clearly did not “gouge”
…and anyone that still calls Schalk a gouger should spend time with him in a locker room and “talk things over” : )
July 3rd 2009 @ 9:51pm
Darryl said | July 3rd 2009 @ 9:51pm | Report comment
Some people on this website have lamented how dour and boring Graham Henry is in press interviews. Perhaps now they understand why. De Villiers, in the same interview, said over and over that he did not condone the behaviour – as the author of this article has indicated. When pressed he diplomatically (and as he should have) said that they were going to wait for the report to come out. He continued to be pressed, I guess the NH media not satisfied until De Villiers inevitably uttered a gaffe, and sure enough with enough repetition, he stepped in it.
When Alan Quinlan was accused of gouging in the match that would lead to his ban, in the post match interviews Paul O’Connell was quoted as saying:
“Quinny is a tough player but he is not that type of guy,” said O’Connell. “It is one thing he has not got in his record book. If it looked bad, I am sure there was nothing in it.”
I looked at the footage on YouTube and it looked bad!
Now I for one would never for one moment accuse Paul O’Connell of attempting to condone eye-gouging by that statement. It was eventually ruled as eye-gouging but does that then indict O’Connell? Not at all. He is simply stating that because of what he knows of Quinlan he felt sure he wasn’t intentionally eye gouging, even if it looked like he was. Makes perfect sense to me. This is exactly what De Villiers was saying in English (his second language), and which has been so focused on at the complete exclusion of all the other comments he made in the same interview. This is self-serving and irresponsibile by the media to say the least, but it doesn’t surprise me. Even this article ironically repeats those excluded comments but then continues on to accuse De Villiers of being blind.
While most of you on this site appear to differ with De Villiers assessment, the judiciary didn’t, and agreed that it wasn’t gouging but it was reckless. This is the same judiciary that banned Nathan Hines for a tackle, Bakkies Botha for a clean out but would then be so lenient for such an ‘obvious’ (according to many) eye gouge? Thankfully De Villiers seems to have learned from this experience as he is now far more guarded in his comments – as he should be.
July 3rd 2009 @ 9:54pm
Darryl SA said | July 3rd 2009 @ 9:54pm | Report comment
Just to clarify, that last “Darryl” was me “Darryl SA”, since there’s another Darryl on this site. Posted that comment from IE rather than from Firefox and IE was still set to my old name before I changed it for better identification.