Peter De Villiers Accuses SANZAR of Ref Conspiracy
South African Springboks coach Peter De Villiers has said that he believes referees are favouring the New Zealand All Blacks in the hope to generate excitement around next year’s Rugby World Cup, which is set to go in New Zealand.
De Villiers claims that the loses sustained by his Springbok side were because of bias officiating that saw the South Africans incur unnecessary penalties, while the All Blacks were sparred the same calls. De Villiers claims the effects of these decisions led to his team losing the first two matches in this year’s Tri-Nations Cup.
The All Blacks have defeated the Boks twice over the last two weeks. Once in Auckland, and again a week later in Wellington. The two matches were not close as the All Blacks won by a margin of 20 in the first game and 14 in the second. The two losses have put the Boks at the bottom of the table heading into their third match against Australia in Brisbane.
De Villiers had been quietly damning the officials all week, not resorting to any specifics. However, recently De Villiers came out and accused the referees of aiding the New Zealand side.
In an interview with Australia’s Rugby World DE Villiers had this to say of the refereeing: “I’ve got my own observations about the last two tests, and I can’t say it in public. But we do have a World Cup in New Zealand next year, and maybe it was the right thing for them to win the games so they can attract more people to the games next year.”
The comments came after a second straight game in which a South African player was sin-binned and later given a suspension.
After the first match, Bakkies Botha was suspended for nine weeks because a head-butt on New Zealand’s Jimmy Cowan. The offence was not called during the match. However, Botha was sin-binned later on for a different offence.
In the second game, winger Danie Rossouw was given a yellow card after kicking Kiwi captain Richie McCaw, who the Boks believe was getting away with infringements all game. In addition, Jean de Villiers was handed a two match ban after a tackle was deemed dangerous.
De Villiers has apparently convinced the South African Rugby Union to get involved, as Oregan Hoskins has instructed the South African member of SANZAR’s judicial committee, Judge Mpati, to bring up the ‘inconsistent rulings’ among the members.
Hoskins explained how the SARU would address the issue: “I have stressed to Judge Mpati the seriousness of the matter, and he has promised that he will come back to be in writing, hopefully next week. I don’t want to say too much further, as previously I have spoken about the issue in the media and nothing has been done about it.”
De Villiers is likely to come under scrutiny from SANZAR and the International Rugby Board, perhaps after this weekend’s game.
The All Blacks and the New Zealand Rugby Union has chosen to stay out of the issue and continue to focus on their game against Australia in two weeks.
De Villiers' comments may be attributed to the difficult situation the Boks now find themselves in at this year’s tournament. They are in last place and have conceded two losses and two bonus points to a strong All Blacks side. To complicate things, they have a very difficult game coming up against the Australian Wallabies this weekend in Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium. The Boks have never won in Suncorp Stadium and historically have had a very difficult time beating the Wallabies in Brisbane.
Regardless of what happens with the referee situation, the Boks are going to have to put forth a better effort on Saturday if they wish to beat the Wallabies and earn the bonus point.
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