Vodacom Bulls coach Pote Human and Stormers coach John Dobson both expressed their disappointment at having players sent to the sin bin in their respective matches on Saturday. DYLAN JACK reports.
There was plenty of talk in the buildup to this weekend’s fixtures about South African referees favouring the home side in terms of penalty count when in charge of matches involving overseas opponents.
A ‘study’ published on a forum of Australian website Green and Gold Rugby found that South African referees in control of matches against non-South African opponents had awarded the home sides 159 more penalties than the away sides since 2017. Sanzaar has disputed the statistic.
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The officiating around legal tackles has also been a talking point in the early rounds of the 2020 Vodacom Super Rugby season, as despite a clear framework developed by World Rugby, there is clearly frustration from coaches and players over the interpretation of dangerous tackles.
In their respective matches against the Blues and Jaguares, the Bulls and Stormers had players harshly yellow-carded by South African referees.
In their narrow loss to the Blues in Pretoria, the Bulls lost both lock Andries Ferreira and captain Burger Odendaal to the sin bin. Ferreira was yellow-carded for repeated infringements, while Odendaal saw yellow for a dangerous tackle, a decision which seemed rather harsh in retrospect.
Speaking after the game, Human said he felt it was a good tackle, given that the Blues player had also ducked into it.
‘I thought it was a really tough call,’ Human said. ‘I really thought he went down and the player ducked into the tackle. It was a great tackle. Nobody was injured or anything.
‘It was a tough one on us. It is difficult, the referee is the sole judge, so you have to respect that and play accordingly.’
As if to add to the confusion around the interpretation of dangerous tackles, Odendaal added that he felt he was lucky not to have seen red.
‘In the moment I felt it was fine,’ the centre said. ‘As soon as I saw the replay and I had made contact with his head, I knew I was in trouble. In the end, they wanted to give me a red card, but because he ducked down they changed it to a yellow. So, basically, I can just say that I am happy to have got a yellow.’
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Meanwhile, in the first half of their win against the Jaguares at Newlands, the Stormers lost tighthead prop Frans Malherbe to the sin bin for a tackle that was also deemed to be dangerous due to contact on the head.
Dobson was vocal about his disappointment in the decision and added that he would consider appealing it to get it taken off Malherbe’s record.
‘We actually started laughing in the box,’ Dobson said. ‘Because we heard this jargon in the World Cup – “mitigating factor”. Frans has hit the bloke’s leg. I know there is contact on the head. And Frans’ arm is coming round.
‘We certainly will look at that. It was more dangerous for Frans. I thought it was a tough one, but we handled it well.’
Watch the full press conference:
Photo: Christiaan Kotze/AFP
