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IRB must punish De Villiers for his remarks

23rd July, 2010
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Roar Guru
23rd July, 2010
33
1117 Reads

Once more Peter De Villiers has brought the game into disrepute. The clear inference from his comments during the week were that the All Black/Springbok game last weekend was fixed – a disgraceful allegation without foundation.

This follows on from his support for Botha’s headbutt and Burger’s eye gouge (tutus and bushveldt came into it as you may recall)

Brendan Cannon, correctly in my view, labelled De Villiers a clown. The Springbok camp now threatens that unless an apology is received, never again will they darken the Rugby Clubs’ door.

In light of that, Cannon is to apologise.

What drivel, I say! Where is the independence of the media? Regardless of whether Cannon is correct, shouldn’t he be able to pass legitimate comment? Isn’t Foxsports just kow-towing to the same bully boy tactics Botha is renown for?

The answers to those questions are:
(i) gone
(ii) at law yes, but in practice it would seem not
(iii) unfortunately, yes.

The South African threat should be ignored. Cannon has nothing to apologise for.

Unfortunately for all the decent down to earth South African folk, their coach is an inane conspiracy theorist. Their Rugby Union wrongly protects him, just as he wrongly protects the aberrant thugs in his team.

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It’s about time the IRB punished De Villiers rather than the SARU menacing Cannon and his employer.

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