Once again South African rugby just doesn’t get it

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 23 Jul 2010 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Peter de VilliersThe SARU boss Oregan Hoskins has intructed the South African representative on the SANZAR legal committee, Judge Lex Mpati, to complain about what he sees as a clear bias by SANZAR against the Springboks.

The issues are a ‘lack of consistency’ in SANZAR’s legal committee, and a specific complaint that Jean de Villiers was treated harshly for his dangerous tackle on Renee Ranger when the All Black winger was lifted well above the waist level and then slammed on to the ground.

Ranger was shaken up by the tackle.

As a general argument in support of the complaint, the SARU asserts that the All Blacks captain Richie McCaw was “getting away with too much” at the breakdown and should have been yellow-carded at Wellington. Also, “nothing was done” about Ranger for an earlier ‘no-arms’ tackle against the Springboks full back, Zane Kirchner.

Taking the tackle Ranger tackle first, it is a marginal call to insist that this was a ‘no-arms’ tackle. Replays show that Ranger led with his arms, as a player is legally required to do. His shoulder then hit Kirchner’s chest when the collision was made.

This tackle was penalised, which was the appropriate penalty if it was deemed a shoulder charge that was below the runner’s head.  In no way was the tackle comparable to de Villier’s dumping of Ranger.

De Villiers, in fact, was lucky to escape a much longer sentence which would have followed if the tackle, as it might have been, had been deemed to be a spear tackle.

Moreover, the SARU makes no reference to Kirchner’s head-high tackle on Corry Jane which was much worse that Ranger’s tackle and was not even penalised.

As for the McCaw nonsense, the All Blacks captain was penalised three times in the match. He was penalised once inside his own 22 for killing the ball when the video evidence revealed he actually turned the ball over legitimately, as he did later in the match.

After this penalty, the referee, Alain Rolland, gave the All Blacks a general warning that any more penalties inside their 22 would result in a yellow card. McCaw was penalised after this inside the Springboks half.

The New Zealand commentators, who clearly were not listening to the referee, could not understand why he wasn’t yellow carded. The reason was obvious, the offence was not inside the New Zealand 22.

Graham Henry has responded to the Springboks coach Peter de Villiers warning that he will have to coach his players ‘to cheat’ (the first coaching he has done for some time, I’d suggest) with the comment that Rolland was correct in his rulings in allowing a contest at the ruck “which is important … otherwise one side will get the ball all day.”

The basic principles of rugby as written down by the IRB insist that rugby is a game about a contest for possession of the ball. As Henry said, Rolland refereed very well at the tackle.

The problem here for the Springboks is that they have refused to adjust to the new interpretations. Instead of tackling low and sending in second diggers for the ball, the Springboks have continued to pick huge forwards who generally tackle high and are reluctant to release the tackled player as the law says they should.

An observant reader of The Roar has picked up, too, that the All Blacks are going over the top of the tackled player when the tackle is around the legs. This is the old-fashioned way New Zealand teams used to ruck.

The All Blacks won about three turnovers with this legal tactic of getting their upright bodies ahead of the tackled player.

The Springboks, on the other hand, and we will see this again probably at Brisbane on Saturday night, tend to dive over the tackled player.

A ploy that is illegal.

More generally, there is an arrogance about the SARU’s complaint. In the two Tests against the All Blacks, the Springboks had Botha sent off for deliberately lying on the ball on the Boks tryline only about 15 minutes before he had head-butted Jimmy Cowan out in the open.

And then Danie Rossouw in the second Test flicked McCaw’s eyes (a rugby no-no) and then kneed him.

This incident happened at the beginning of the Test, just like Botha’s head-butt, and like Shalk Burger’s eye-gouging against the British and Irish Lions last year.

When you look back at the Springboks, there is a pattern of taking out a player early on in a Test. The wonder is that they think they can continue to get away with this thuggish play.

If the referees are so hostile to them, too, how does SARU explain that Botha’s head-butt and Kirchner’s head high tackle were both missed by the referee and the assistant referees?

SARU should also explain why they allow coach de Villiers, who is becoming a buffoon who disgraces the great South African rugby tradition, to support Burger’s eye-gouging and Botha’s many acts of thuggery, including his latest head-butt.

And while we’re at it, how do they allow de Villiers to continue to select Botha as soon as he comes back from one his frequent bans, and puts Butch James, another serial thug, into his match 22?

James was on the field for about 5 minutes in the first Test against the All Blacks. He threw Brad Thorn out of the way, illegally, and then gave Jane a facial massage that went very close to choking and eye-gouging.

If the SARU were serious about bias in the judicial system, they would issue an instruction that Botha and James are never to play for the Springboks again. And that coach de Villiers will stop from supporting his players when they are blatantly guilty of foul play.

Last year, the Springboks, with the support of SARU, wore black arm bands in support of ‘Justice4Bathies’ when he banned for charging illegally into a maul and breaking the arm of a Lions forward. Botha head-butted an All Black in the opening seconds of a Test, an action that even Victor Matfield concedes was ‘unacceptable.’

The fact that the SARU and the Springboks can’t see the link between their bizarre ‘Justice4Bakkies’ demonstration and Botha’s continued thuggish play is an unacceptable proof that South African rugby just doesn’t get it.

If you continually condone thuggish play and select players who have a history of thuggishness, you’ll get the deserved reputation of being a dirty team.

I’m looking forward to the Springboks proving me wrong at Brisbane that they can play an important Test without someone disgracing the jersey with unacceptable play.

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