Rohan Hoffmann can be glad ‘Brandy Piet’ is not watching him at scrum time
ROHAN HOFFMANN copped copious amounts of abuse last Saturday after his horror show in the Super Rugby match between the Sharks and the Waratahs. Social media went berserk during the clash, with even the normally gentle Shaun Pollock calling him “Rohan Doffmann”.
It was one of the worst performances on a television set since Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and Funeral. Thankfully, Hoffmann’s whistle has been taken away this weekend and replaced with a flag, and hopefully he doesn’t cause too much damage with it in Perth, where the Highlanders and the Force meet tomorrow.
The abuse spread to his Wikipedia page, with hackers out of Durban adding the words “incompetent”, “useless” and “cheat” to his biography. However, the people who hacked his Wikipedia page were a bit more polite than the ones who had their way with English referee Wayne Barnes’s page after his handling of the 2007 World Cup quarter-final between France and New Zealand.
Barnes missed a forward pass that led to a French try, which resulted in one of the upsets of the tournament. The pictures of Richie McCaw staring straight ahead, in a daze of bewilderment, summed up the shock result better than most.
Barnes even needed protec- tion while manning the technical area during one of the semifinals following a plethora of death threats from many All Blacks’ fans.
Here are some of the gems that were posted on Barnes’s page. (Please note, this is not for the fainthearted!)
“Wayne Barnes is a c*** (born 20 April 1979) died in 2007 following the second shocking upheaval of the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
“Lynched by a mob of people with 20/20 vision who actually read the f***ing rulebook, his corpse was pelted with rugby PASSES, in a BACKWARD direction during the last stages of his life. Urination and defacement of the corpse then followed.
“He became a professional referee in April 2005, giving up a career in law to do so, because he couldn’t read any f***ing law books either!
“England paid him to make the All Blacks lose so that England would have a easier match against France in the semi final. “Get some f***ing glasses. “I wish nothing but pain and suffering on the man in question.
“He suffers from a visionrelated disease, which results in him being unable to see forward passes.
“I think a blind goat could do better then him, I never knew that a ref could be so bad.”
That’s brutal, wouldn’t you say?
Long before the time of keyboard warriors on Twitter and Facebook, who abuse referees and other celebrities from the comfort of their own phones and computers, a poor refereeing display was dealt with on the field.
“Justice” was swift in 2002, and in the case of Springbok supporter Piet van Zyl it reeked of brandy and came with a “plumbers crack”. Van Zyl ran on the field during a Test between the Boks and the All Blacks in Durban and tackled referee Dave McHugh.
Van Zyl definitely didn’t come through the “gate” as he took out McHugh from the side. He probably left the stadium “from the side” as well, because there’s no way he could have fit through a turnstile.
After the tackle, there was certainly some “hands in the ruck” from Richie McCaw and AJ Venter, as Van Zyl got up with a bloody nose before being escorted off the park by police officials. Apparently his bloodalcohol level at the time was “this guy should be legally dead”.
Yeah Rohan, it could be worse. At least you can still set foot in New Zealand and you don’t have to look behind you every time you make your scrum calls.
AND DON’T FORGET TO WATCH ...
Tomorrow, the “Cape Crusaders” and Stormers supporters will unite. They will stand together in harmony, fighting a common enemy. They will be cheering on the Crusaders against the Waratahs! Yeah, the Crusaders can do the Stormers a massive favour if they can beat the Australian side.
With the fight for playoff positions going down to the wire, fans are going to align themselves with the enemy over the next few weeks!
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