And they think the refs are blind!

Correct. O'Connell was asked to comment directly after the match when there had been no penalty awarded or yellow card for Quinlan. Quinlan went up to Cullen during and after the match to apologise and say that it hadn't been intentional. O'Connell could only respond to what was said to him by a journalist. PdV had the 'advantage' of having watched the footage and declaring that he had and on his viewing of it, that it did not even warrant a penalty. He knows English well enough to understand the import of that. so I don't buy this revisionism that's now starting to occur whereby PdV walks away from what he said because English isn't his first language. He knew exactly what he was saying in the first press conference. He modified it, after the SARU got a sever kicking in the media, and issued a joint statement saying they didn't condone eye-gouging. Let's not try to re-write history.

I would presume that PdV had already seen video footage of the incident, and that O'Connell hadn't.

Ok, well I can see neither of us is going to influence the others thinking/belief. So we'll just agree to disagree I guess. You have every right to your opinion and thanks for engaging the issue and not making it personal.

Darryl - those comments you've quoted were from his press conference on the Wednesday after the whole controversy of his comments had already blown up and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that SARU would have been in his ear to qualify his earlier comments. I do appreciate English may not be his first language, but he does speak it fluently - enough to know that trying to downplay the incident by saying ""Rugby is a contact sport, so is dancing. So if some guys can't take it, make the decision. There are so many incidents that we can say we want to cite this guy for maliciously jumping into this guy's face with his shoulder but we didn't do it because we know that it's just a game....Look, if you're going to win games in the boardroom or in front of television cameras, then, look, do we really respect the game we know or should we go to the ballet shop for some nice tutus and get a great dancing show going? And then there will be no gouging, no tackling, no nothing." was idiotic. He's not actually saying "I think eye-gouging is fine" but he is essentially saying "It's a hard sport and nasty things happen, accept it".

Jerry. Why would he say that, and yet have just said " “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.” Do you not give any leeway to the fact that English is his second language, and perhaps, just perhaps his comments were taken out of context? I have not seen footage of him saying the words you mention (I will go look on YouTube now again) but I just don't understand how you come to the fairly harsh and rigid conclusion you have when it's in this article, it's on YouTube that he definitely *did* say the anti-foulplay words quoted above in this article and again now by me.

Darryl - that's a fairly generous assessment of PDV's standpoint. If he'd adopted the same line as O'Connell ie "Yes, the incident was bad, but that's not the player and guy I know", no-one would have given a toss - that's the standard line from team-mates and coaches about any dodgy incident that leads to a suspension. But he didn't, he went further to say that gouging is a part of the game and that Burger didn't even deserve a yellow.

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.

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.

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" : )

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.

Schalk Burger has been cleared of eye goughing.

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.

Mark, Im sure the fact that he is a Kiwi plays no small part in the blame.

"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 ! "

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.

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.