Boks point finger at Heaslip
30 Nov 2009
The Springboks have accused Jamie Heaslip of eye-gouging.
The Springboks have issued a request to match citing commissioner, Douglas Hunter from Scotland to investigate claims that the Ireland No 8 stuck his finger into the eye of Heinrich Brüssow in the first half of Saturday’s Test.
Hunter has noted the request and will review video evidence before deciding on whether to cite the player or not.
In the build up to the clash at Croke Park, won 15-10 by Ireland, the local media were incessant in their criticism of the Springboks’ physical approach to the game, which they deemed amounted to nothing more than foul play.
They exhumed the issue of Schalk Burger’s eye-gouge on Irish wing Luke Fitzgerald in the second Test of the British & Irish Lions series, and used it as the example of the illegality which marks the Springboks’ play.
After that match Heaslip was particularly critical of Burger and the referee, commenting that it was hard for the Lions to win when ‘shit like that was being allowed’, referring to the eye-gouge in particular but also to other incident which he thought went unpunished.
The Springboks later lost Bakkies Botha for the third Test after the lock was found guilty of a dangerous charge on prop Adam Jones, when video evidence suggested there was nothing illegal about the ruck clean. The Springboks protested the ludicrous ruling, only for SA Rugby to be heavily fined by the International Rugby Board.
In the third Test Lions lock Simon Shaw blatantly fell with his knees into the back of Fourie du Preez, an act which could have at worst resulted in paralysis, yet was only banned for two weeks.
It remains to be seen whether the Springboks have a strong case against Heaslip or not. But even if they do, don’t hold your breath that Hunter will cite Heaslip, let alone punish him accordingly.
Meanwhile, the All Blacks have also lodged an official complaint against France for eye-gouging.
Prop Tony Woodcock emerged from the 39-12 win in Marseilles with marks around his eye.
‘There’s no doubt Tony got a facial, that’s how he described it. We asked the citing commissioner to have a look at it and we’ll leave it in his hands,’ All Blacks assistant coach Steve Hansen told stuff.co.nz. ‘We’re not going moan about it. There’s a process and he’ll have a look at it and if there’s nothing to answer, then we’ll just get on with it.’
63 Comments
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30 Nov 2009, 11:58 am
Enjoyable weekend of rugby. Different conditions, different types of games but all compelling.
Seems like Keo isn’t happy with the tour. Why has this not been posted on this site?
LET’s skip all the emotional claptrap, the political correctness and newfound South African way of justifying that our teams don’t lose, the other teams just score more points. Let’s get real and call Saturday’s Springbok Test defeat and the five-match tour of Europe exactly what it was: an absolute disaster and a disgrace.
I love John Robbie on talkback radio. He is the best because he calls it like it is, but when John is explaining losses to France and Ireland as nothing more than fatigue I get worried about those ultra-positive contracts one has to sign to be allowed on to SuperSport.
The Boks lost to a half-decent French team, a Leicester team missing 12 of their regulars, a Saracens SA XV that would not end in the top six of the Currie Cup, made Italy look like Six Nations contenders and should have been put away by 20 points by Ireland, who in the last year have been the most consistent international team. That the Boks were named international team of the year after taking a beating from the Irish was as close as it comes to an Irish joke, and it wasn’t a particularly funny one.
Australia losing to Scotland gave some perspective to the Tri-Nations campaign. New Zealand’s changing of coaching roles and reversal to a more conservative approach, orchestrated by the world’s best flyhalf, Dan Carter, who incidentally did not play in the two defeats against the Boks in SA, adds more reality to the quality of the Tri-Nations win, and the All Blacks’ fitness in Marseilles ended any arguments that the Boks lost because they were simply too tired. The All Blacks, in club and provincial games, played as much rugby as the Boks and the Test sides have played even more matches this year than the Springboks.
The Boks lost because a French team physically roughed them up and exposed the fragile Bok front row with John Smit as a tighthead. The Bok scrum only resembled a quality unit when BJ Botha was at tighthead against Ireland and Smit was at hooker. The moment Smit moved to tighthead, the only area of dominance that belonged to the Boks disappeared.
The line-out, the strength of the Boks since the 2007 World Cup, was a shambles and the fact that the man who coached the line-out between 2004 and 2007 was not even mentioned in the post-match television analysis was as diabolical as the justification for the defeats.
Gert Smal’s true value to the Boks was illustrated in Dublin on Saturday. The Bok line-out did not struggle because Smit’s line-out throwing was poor. Smit is the best line-out thrower in world rugby.
The Bok line-out was reduced to rubble because the new coaching staff have not changed anything since 2007. The calls are still the same and this was a case of the master (Smal, now with Ireland) upstaging the student (Victor Matfield). I have never seen a Test where Matfield has been so innocuous and lacked such presence.
Smal, more than anything else, beat the Boks and it showed how little this team has actually advanced.
The senior players have run the team since Peter de Villiers took over, but there comes a point when a team needs a coach who coaches, and not a coach that takes them to the ground in the comfort also known as a team bus.
Should De Villiers get fired? No. But he needs help and the most qualified person to help him, in the role of national director of coaching, is the man who masterminded SA’s 2007 World Cup win. Jake White is the sound-board that could turn De Villiers into a coach and not the players’ mate who allows them to do as they please.
The fatigued South African s are hanging around for a match against the All Blacks. Could someone at the South African Rugby Union explain that one to me? No, because there isn’t anyone there with the rugby acumen to give me that answer.
Think of this tour and the chaos and lies. Let’s start with the lie about transformation. Black players selected in the squad were sent home and white players not in the original squad ended up playing in the Tests when De Villiers hit the first of many panic buttons.
De Villiers said Smit’s future was at tighthead, so why did he draft in BJ Botha? Why was Maku not put on the bench against Italy instead of Adriaan Strauss , who was not even in the original tour?
Window-dressing at its most crass. The same applies to the selection of Raubenheimer and Johnson when Jean Deysel also went straight from the beach to the Test squad. I believe the selections of Deysel and Strauss should have been made originally, but the squad chosen was a transformation con that insulted any decent black rugby player in this country.
If Smit is going to the World Cup at tighthead then they had to persist with him through all the struggles.
If Morne Steyn is going to kick SA that World Cup-winning penalty then you play him through the shocker he had in Dublin and write it off to an experience that will make him stronger. When De Jong is the find of the midweek side and Adi Jacobs gets injured, you don’t draft a 50-Test cap Springbok based in Munster into the Test squad and get him to sit on the bench for 63 minutes.
You either start with Jean de Villiers, who is the best inside centre in the game, or you say to the newcomer De Jongh, this is your chance to take that step up. If SA had lost with the next generation of players there would be no issue, but to have got beaten so convincingly with the best team available, outside of Bakkies Botha and Frans Steyn, then the Bok selectors need to ask themselves why they haven’t resigned.
The tour objective was to develop players and win. Neither objective was achieved. More careers were broken than made and the denial within the team simply intensified.
The rugby the Boks played was poor. The substitutions were not tactical, they were terrible, and they have been all year. The All Blacks played stupid rugby against SA in SA and paid the price. The Boks fed off their mistakes and never had to play risk rugby.
In Hamilton, the Boks were a cross-kick from defeat, in Pretoria they were saved by a last-minute 55m penalty, and in Johannesburg they were pulverised by the British and Irish Lions. In Toulouse, Leicester, Wembley and Croke Park they looked like world chumps and not world champs.
Whoever let Smal go should be fired, yet that won’t happen because no one will remember him ever asking to make a further contribution to the Springboks. There is no explanation why a guy who won SA the World Cup won’t be used to improve the chances of them retaining the Cup.
Excellence is punished; mediocrity gets the equivalent of a knighthood.
This tour did not ask questions, it provided every answer and someone at South African rugby has to have the balls to bring together the best rugby brains, facilitate the uber egos and clean the wound instead of adding an Elastoplast by claiming the Boks are the International Rugby Board team of the year.
Now is the time for honesty because the best team in the world does not get smashed in Brisbane, Leicester, Wembley, Toulouse, Dublin, Johannesburg and sneak two three-point wins in Pretoria and Hamilton.
The Boks are not as tired as we think and they are not as good as we think. But they could be the best if every agenda was put to one side and decisions were made that benefit the Boks and confront issues instead of blaming referees, fatigue and glorifying five-point losses.
n Keohane, the SAB Sports and Internet Columnist of the Year, is the chief operating officer for Highbury Safika Media
30 Nov 2009, 12:03 pm
@Just Another Paddy: I agree with you Paddy, but unfortunately lately its all about hits and how many papers are sold that matters rather than objectivity, and some fans buy into this whole thing whole heartily! The atmosphere looked really good at Croke Parck I was wishing I was there. What amazed me the most was the “good sportsmanship” shown by the spectators, when both sides were kicking the entire stadium was silent! Here in the South the crowd makes as much noise as possible to try and distract the kickers!
30 Nov 2009, 12:36 pm
Holy smokes, obviously you did not watch the game in Hamilton. The all blacks come back flattered the score line. Cross kick or not, in fact McCaw was OFFSIDES for the first try anyway.
Holy smokes, we beat the lions, get over it. Best come back in history on one of the best games EVER. We did not sneak a win but scroed 3 EXCELLENT TRIES< GET OVER IT.
wtf. Yes lets be HONEST. We had great year, beat the all blacks 3 times (according to you all lucky but as you said we had more points than them), beat the lions, also same logic.
If you want to be honest then write a decent article highlighting the BOKS had a great year but they can be even better by utilizing the best brains, such as Gert Smal. Yes there is room for improvement, be constrictive.
Agree end of year was a disaster, but according to the authors boks were VERY lucky to win 5-1 tri nations game and VERY LUCKY to beat the lions 2-1.
Wow, I recall the other LUCKY South African, who said " the more I practice the luckier I get".
Your article is just a steaming pile of XEWR@#$@!@@QQE.
30 Nov 2009, 12:38 pm
@uncleben: Oh this was at Stodders by the way.
30 Nov 2009, 14:51 pm
Hate it when we cry afterwards!!!! Do it only if there is real damage. Let’s leave that to the Pansy’s outside SA. Well done to the Irish crowd on the respect shown to kickers!! I appreciate this civilized approach. well done.
30 Nov 2009, 15:17 pm
Stodders
A well written observation all round. Unlike uncleben i see more accuaracy in your interpretation than his. Yes uncleben we should rejoice that we had a very good tri nations. On that one there is no doubt. The capitulation to the aussies was a big worry though!! The narrow win against the BI Lions however was a very lucky affair. ie the second test. Our supposed second side got stuffed like a third rate team they were in the final game. I personally think that the Lions would have been in a really strong position playing the decider against us if they had won the second. (The result flattered us in the second, I’ll take it though!!) My point is let’s use the very accurate observations of Stodders and use them to prevent further problems going forward. Dont shoot the messenger. People who complain generally want to see these things fixed, if they didn’t they would just laugh it off and do something else.
30 Nov 2009, 15:24 pm
@upandunder:
That wasn’t Stodders – that was Mark Keohane’s column in the Business Day this morning…
30 Nov 2009, 16:13 pm
allegations of eye-gouging ?
Im surprised the Boks even bothered with citing Heaslip. Besides, going by the act of contrition shown by Burger after scoring, you would have thought it perfectly respectable and honourable when involving SA Rugby.
30 Nov 2009, 20:25 pm
WP TID
Yea saw afterwards. Thanks. Keo’s observations pertinent then!!!
1 Dec 2009, 00:13 am
“the local media were incessant in their criticism of the Springboks’ physical approach to the game, which they deemed amounted to nothing more than foul play.”
Why is it that keo hacks constantly go on about what the Irish media has to say about the Boks without ever quoting a single journalist? It would great if keo journalists held themselves to the same standards of accuracy as they seem to do everyone else.
1 Dec 2009, 01:50 am
From Ireland’s RTE:
Monday, 30 November 2009 21:22
The IRFU has confirmed that Jamie Heaslip will not be cited as a result of an alleged incident in Ireland’s Test against South Africa on Saturday.
The IRFU also confirmed that none of a number of referrals made by South Africa against Irish players were upheld by independent citing commissioner Douglas Hunter.
A statement released by the IRFU this evening read: ‘The Six Nations has confirmed to the Irish Rugby Football Union that none of a number of referrals made by South Africa against Ireland players has been upheld by the independent citing commissioner that was present at the game between Ireland and South Africa in Croke Park on Saturday 28 November.
‘The Ireland management is however, very disappointed that the name of an Ireland player was subsequently associated with eye gouging in the media as a result of one of these unsubstantiated referrals.
‘The Ireland management fully support and believe in the integrity of the citing process in place, but believe that any referrals in this process should be made only when they are material and substantial.’
The statement concluded: ‘The Ireland management will be making no further comment and consider the matter closed.’
The Springboks had requested Hunter to investigate claims that Heaslip stuck his finger into the eye of Heinrich Brüssow.
The claim follows on from Schalk Burger’s eight-week ban for gouging on Irish wing Luke Fitzgerald in the opening seconds of the second Lions Test this summer and is the latest instalment of ‘bad blood’ between the sides.
A refusal to share post-match drinks during the Lions tour, and the South Africans’ failure to clap their opponents off the field on Saturday are among other recent rancorous incidents.
ends
Has anyone seen any footage of this alleged incident? I haven’t.
1 Dec 2009, 09:08 am
@WakaNathan: So it’s ok if it’s done to a Bok? (and I’m not saying it was, because I haven’t seen footage) Because Schalk gouged someone? Lol your double standards defy description. I suppose no AB has ever tried to wind up the crowd either?
1 Dec 2009, 09:14 am
@Paddylock: Nah me neither, tried to find it online but couldn’t…. I know that the ‘incident’ happened off camera, so not sure if there would be much footage of it? Would be interesting to know what happened…will keep an eye out for a re-broadcast
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