A sour taste

Schalk Burger’s “moment of madness” has taken the gloss off what should have been a celebration of an epic test match and a satisfying series victory over the 2009 British and Irish Lions.

The Springboks rode their luck in both games; at first because their coaches conspired to destroy their structure in Durban and then because Burger, by having himself sinbinned in the 32nd second on Saturday, put them under enormous pressure at Loftus.

Then in one of the most extraordinary tests I have seen the Boks staged a quite magnificent fight-back to score two great tries in the final 20 minutes to provide Morné Steyn with his “the winner takes it all” moment after fulltime and the opportunity to secure his place in the chronicles of a contest that traces its history to 1891.

It could have been a victory to savour but for Burger’s quite staggering brain explosion with the game just a couple of seconds old.

One will never know what got into the fiery flanker as television replays provided graphic evidence of his heinous crime. Burger simply seemed to reach over and grapple at Lions wing Luke Fitzgerald’s eyes.

I could hardly believe it when I saw the first replay and no amount of PVR repeats have softened the initial impact.

Burger let himself and his team down – badly.

Sadly he also provided ammunition for those who would stereotype all South African rugby players as louts.

And once it happened there was no recourse for Burger but to face up to his inevitable punishment. Including Saturday’s he has been yellow-carded six times in his 50 tests and there was also the iniquitous incident at the World Cup in France when he was put through the tribunal mill and was suspended for initial period of four weeks, reduced to two on appeal, because of a disputed occurrence in the opening game against Samoa.

Bakkies Botha’s transgression was less clear-cut because he was “cleaning out” a player, Adam Jones, in the aggressive manner which has become the norm in modern rugby. In fact, Botha was immediately hit by a similar charge from a Lion but, as they say, his reputation preceded him.

Tribunals don’t consider incidents in isolation; they look at previous misdemeanours so the big Bull, who was recently in trouble in the Super 14 (also somewhat unfairly), probably had little chance of leniency.

It is also odd that none of the Lions were cited. There were some ugly high tackles flying in and Andrew Sheridan, their agent provocateur, is lucky not to have been asked to answer for a pair of punches that went a little beyond what Bob Dwyer termed “bag snatching.”

However, two wrongs don’t make a right and there is no arguing that Burger’s reckless indiscretion tainted the Springboks’ victory.

The hearings of the Bok duo took place against a backdrop of Irish loose forward Alan Quinlan missing the Lions tour after having been banned for 12 weeks for making contact with the eye area of the Leinster captain, Leo Cullen in the semifinal of the Heineken Cup as well as a similar incident involving Italy’s skipper Sergio Parisse against the All Blacks earlier in the day.

I have been amazed by the polarisation caused by the incident; both among fans and in the media and the less said about Peter de Villiers madcap defence of the player the better.

A coach has to stand by his man but instead of adopting dignified objectivity De Villiers seemed to condone no-holds-barred rough play in a pitiable effort to ingratiate himself with his players.

In time the sordid details will be forgotten and if the Lions do tour again in 12 years time Morné Steyn’s will be writ large, but for me the Loftus test left a sour taste.

I would like to think that the Springboks, moreover a team led by the admirable John Smit, do not play that way.

And most of all I would like to think that Schalk Burger does not play that way.