Peter de Villers has been left off. What a travesty! His specific assertions in the Fox Sports interview are quite clear.
He said his observations were such that he should not say them in public, and maybe it was right that New Zealand won the Test match to boost World Cup attendance.
It is equally clear, by inference:
* New Zealand won other than because they deserved to
* they won because of other influences
* by imputation, some controlling rugby body and/or the match officials fixed the result
You do not have to say in so many words “the match was fixed” to make such allegations. That is exactly what de Villiers did.
I find it incredible that any senior counsel could determine otherwise. A barrister who cannot understand words is like a carpenter who cannot use a hammer.
Unfortunately Hoskens’ declaration of war, the ludicrous “justice for Bakkies campaign”, and De Villiers insidious allegation of cheating all go unpunished.
Disgraceful.
Jerry
Guest
Smit injured his groin and played on for half an hour - spear tackles don't normally injure groins you know. The tackle wasn't any worse than the ones JDV, Fourie and Cooper have copped similar suspensions for. The Marshall thing was never proven to have been caused by Harrison.
adam
Guest
well lets look at justice for bakkies well i saw the shocking shoulder charge on sharks centre brad barrit by nsw scrumhalf which gave the sharks centre a concussion and the warratahs player wasnt even banned or the brad thorn spear tackle on john smit which ended his whole tri nations and he was only banned for 2 matches or the justin harrison eye gouge on justin marshall where eddie jones said how do u we know that eye gouge did the damage and no ban ? or the shoulder charge by matt gitua on fourie du preez in the tri nations and he was yellow carded no ban so justice for bakkies lets have more of it sa always gets the short end of the stick
Skip
Guest
Seeing as he didn't mean to critisize the referees, it would be nice if he went on a limb and told us all just what he did mean. I know there are enough hacks in SA plus the non cognisanti who will tell us their views, but if his comments were intended to be entirely innocent, perhaps he could get a professional Afikaans interpreter to ease our collective curiosity.
Wally James
Roar Guru
Stillmissit His attempts at English can be quite humorous. To be fair to him, his Enlgish is streets ahead of my Afrikaans. Cheers Wally
Wally James
Roar Guru
Stash Every possibility I may write something after partaking of some refreshment but not in this instance. Cheers Wally
stillmissit
Roar Guru
Rugby would be very much the poorer if PdV was not there. I await his comments with almost childlike glee. He can brighten up a dull day better than just about any other person in rugby today.
stash
Roar Pro
Hmmm... I think I'm the barrister in this story (late night blog after a couple of wines was it)
RedsNut
Guest
Hear hear