Boycott South Africa until SARU put house in order
For me the result of the Lions Test series was irrelevant, as the focus in the coming months has to be on the damage done to rugby by Rassie Erasmus, and the SARU. A bit of niggle is good for the game, but this went far beyond that.
Premiership fans with long memories will recall that back in 2004 Sale Sharks and Leicester Tigers fought out a 3-3 draw on a miserable evening at Edgeley Park. The Second Test between the Lions and the Boks, wasn’t quite on that level, but not far off !
The Lions are supposedly the pinnacle of rugby, but players that we know are great because we see them every week were reduced to error-prone shadows of themselves, while South Africa’s tactics predictably were as negative and tedious as you’ll see. However, teams are entitled to play as they wish to give themselves the greatest chance of success, so the blame lay with the Lions coaches who failed dismally to counter, the Boks tactics.
That match again highlighted the gulf between northern and southern hemisphere officiating, and how disastrously out of touch World Rugby is. I saw half a dozen incidents where I thought the citing officer might get involved, but no, the only one he chose to pick out was the one everyone missed, Kyle Sinckler being accused of biting, and that was subsequently dismissed by a disciplinary panel!
It is clear that northern refs are applying a different and more rigorous set of standards when it comes to player welfare, and the game becomes a joke if there are two sets of law interpretations in play.
The South Africans are familiar with all of the southern referees so why did Erasmus decide this was the time to criticise them? That’s simple: he couldn’t take the fact that they’d lost the first Test, so he lashed out like a spoiled child. Predictably there are plenty in South Africa defending his behaviour, but not one of them has questioned the timing of his outburst.
Referee Ben O’Keeffe was presumably affected by the shocking treatment meted out to Nic Berry after the First Test, and he seemed to be afraid to make big decisions, consistently erring on the side of conservatism. The first half lasted an hour, partly because of the TMO’s involvement, but also because O’Keeffe failed to clamp down on time-wasting – shoelaces needing to be tied, water needing to be drunk, players falling down when they fancied a rest. Tellingly, with a victory for the Boks, Erasmus said not a dicky bird.
If the Lions are one of the biggest things in rugby, something that’s much bigger is the game itself, and it has been the loser on this sorry tour. Events in South Africa have sullied the game’s reputation. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse we had the threat of New York lawyers getting involved in helping Erasmus fight the World Rugby disciplinary case, funded by the organisation that owns a majority stake in the Durban-based Sharks!
It’s time for some plain speaking: the South Africans need the home nations and the Lions much more than we need them. This is a country with an economy that’s shot to pieces, desperate civil unrest, a Union strapped for cash, and with many of their best players opting to desert their homeland and play overseas.
It should be made clear that they are on a formal warning, and that none of the home nations will put a foot on South African soil until their house has been put in order, with a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no repetition of the disgraceful events that have marred this tour: a good start would be Erasmus being severely punished. If any good can come out of this tour it would be the SARU being dragged into line.