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Our code outlaws foul play. As a heavy contact sport, rugby cannot easily define foul play.
Mere danger is not an organising principle: a completely legal tackle can knock a ball-carrier out and even the most correct of scrums could end with a maimed prop.
Rugby is risky. Tackling Julian Savea is dangerous: most opposing wings behave as if bringing him down is prohibited.
Foul play in rugby is defined in World Rugby Law 10. The broad preamble describes foul play as ‘anything a player does within the playing enclosure that is against the letter and spirit of the Laws of the Game.’
Some foul play is described expressly: tripping, for example. Law 10.4 lists other ‘dangerous’ foul play explicitly: kicking a player or punching or striking (with fist, arm, elbow, shoulder, head, or knee), stamping, trampling, and the most contentious one, ‘dangerous tackling.’
Biting is so far beyond the rugby pale that perhaps it needs no definition. Law 10.4 (m) does, however, provide a catch-all prohibition on anything that is against the spirit of good sportsmanship.
Biting a player is clearly against the spirit of the game. We don’t have assistant biting coaches, biting is not a core skill, and very few parents would allow their kids to play a biting-friendly sport. In every sane household, the kids are not permitted to bite one another.
Of course, if you see a law about something, you can guarantee that thing is being done. That’s why there has to be a law. Many actions that occur on a rugby pitch would be illegal off it. For instance, if you tackle a man in a bar, you might end up in the dock.
Biting another person without their consent is criminal in virtually every jurisdiction. Unlike a punch, a bite has a high risk of detaching a part of the victim’s body. It is also extremely creepy.
What does a rugby biter do with the severed part? Did Mike Tyson swallow Evander Holyfield’s ear cartilage? Or just spit it out? Do we reattach it?
These are questions – regardless of the answers – that illustrate the depraved nature of biting a fellow sportsman, even if we grant the biter the concession that he was in the ‘heat of battle.’
Yet from time to time, rugby players have lost the plot and bitten an opponent. I have found no recorded instance of a player biting his teammate.
I have found no record of a rugby player biting an opponent again, after being found guilty of a prior bite, except for Leonardo Senatore of the Jaguares and Pumas.
He is the first rugby union player I have been able to look up who has been found guilty of biting on two separate occasions. In Senatore’s case, his two victims were both South African forwards who had cleaned him out at a ruck, and had their arms around his neck.
Football has a three-time biter: Luis Suarez of Uruguay. Suarez (who makes about 20 times as much money as Senatore) bit an Italian defender in 2014, after biting a Chelsea defender in 2013, and a PSV player in 2010. In a game that has no provocative rucks or the surreptitious spaces of a scrum, it is astounding that Suarez did not receive a lifetime ban.
I imagine every defender thinks for an instant about Suarez’s incisors when locked in a one-on-one tussle with the Uruguayan star.
But rugby has typically been able to stop a biter from the second bite. Sometimes the team management of the biter is an important part of that process.
For instance, in a close 1994 Test at Eden Park, Springbok prop Johan le Roux bit All Black hooker Sean Fitzpatrick’s ear, and although the Irish referee did not see the event and therefore did not penalise le Roux, the Bok coaching staff found him guilty and sent him home; he never played for his country again, even after his 18-month ban ended.
Le Roux himself was unrepentant, famously proclaiming he should have torn all of Fitzy’s ear off so he could have ‘returned to South Africa with the guy’s ear.’
It is not clear how Argentina’s rugby chiefs see Senatore’s actions, nor is it clear how Senatore himself views biting. In both of his biting incidents, he defended his actions; and no officials publicly condemned him.
Perhaps all unions in the world of rugby should make it clearer that a second bite triggers a lifetime ban, and a first bite should cost a player at least a year of rugby. Ridding oneself of the impulse to bite ears, fingers, hands, and arms is probably not simple; a period of reflection would help.
If I were a national coach, with the honour that a Test cap bestows in my hands, I would decline to select a biter. Hell, I might not even allow Dean Greyling to play for the ‘Boks, after his out-of-control attack on Richie McCaw.
But I definitely wouldn’t want a biter on my team.
England had a prop, Kevin Yates, who bit a club opponent, necessitating 25 stitches. The RFU did allow him to play for his country again, but only after ten years in the wilderness (well, actually, he played in Wellington, New Zealand for a while).
Maybe the location of Senatore’s two bites are the real reason the SANZAAR judicial committee went easy on him. Biting an arm cannot easily maim a person; especially Etzebeth’s arm, which resembles most grown men’s thighs in size.
How else can we understand the oddly lenient ruling by SANZAAR on Senatore that removed four weeks because of ‘mitigating factors, including the player’s good character, his playing and disciplinary record.’
Every other convicted rugby biter has never repeated the crime as far as I know. Only Senatore is a repeat offender.
Is this latest punishment truly a powerful condemnation from the judiciary? Senatore will return for The Rugby Championship, where he will probably face Etzebeth again. Why should Etzebeth have to worry about being bitten again if he misjudges a ruck clean?
Being bitten probably is not that easy to forget. In 2008, a Trentham RFC player, Michael Bezus, was bitten by a St. Edwards Old Boys opponent, suffering a partial amputation of the right index finger. The biter was suspended for 80 weeks; Bezus has ‘lost enthusiasm for the game.’
Some biters have been jailed. Welsh club flank Gareth Jones (no relation to the author) bit off an opponent’s ear lobe in 2008; a Cardiff judge described the attack as ‘barbaric’ as he sentenced Jones to a year in prison.
A Brackenfell player in the Western Cape of South Africa had a ‘moment of madness’ in 2009 after he was ‘handled roughly’ at a ruck by an opponent; uncommonly, he was red carded in the match (most biters escape in-game penalty) and prosecuted for assault.
Senatore may consider his bites justified. Daniel did take Senatore to ground and had his arm around Senatore’s chest and neck at the bottom of a ruck. (Senatore also copped a knee from a fellow teammate to his head). Etzebeth is no cupcake; if he has you in a headlock, I suppose you will contemplate your mortality.
But rucks will be rough as long as rugby is played. Even the UFC has strict rules about biting. Rugby should never have serial biters standing in line for a national anthem, privileged to play another nation’s best.
Unions should have more respect for each other than to allow a player who cannot or will not keep his teeth out of opponents’ arms to play against other Test teams.
If Senatore bites Etzebeth again this year, can we expect just an eleven-week ban?
Why wouldn’t the ‘Boks target Senatore; and who could blame them?
Why is Etzebeth’s body so much less worthy of protection than Fitzpatrick’s?
If rugby wants to grow – as it must – is this the kind of story we can afford?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.