Justice my foot!

The concurrence of South African rugby’s misconduct hearing by an IRB disciplinary panel and the failure by the citing commissioner in the Springbok vs Wallaby Test match to take action against Matt Giteau has yet again drawn attention to the manifest iniquities in the game’s judicial procedures.

South African rugby, the Springbok players and the team’s management were in the dock for the symbolic gesture of the team having worn white armbands with the legend “Justice 4” on them as a mark of protest against a two-week suspension handed to Bakkies Botha because of an incident in the second Test against the British & Irish Lions.

In IRB-speak Botha was censured for “dangerously charging into a ruck without binding on a player” but his Springbok teammates felt his actions were completely within the dictates of the law and consistent with any number of such “clean-outs.” The Boks were suspicious that South Africa’s hard man was being victimised and forced to pay the price for a Press-generated reputation.

Helpless to make a stronger protest against something they felt to be patently unfair the players decided on the armband avowal to make a statement about their dissatisfaction.

Significantly the Boks made no protest about Schalk Burger’s eight-week suspension for attacking the face of Luke Fitzgerald, but they were angered by the fact that Botha was persecuted for an action that even the Lions agreed was lawful.

Botha’s run-in with the law was the latest in a series of incidents in which South African players got the short end of the stick and the players clearly felt that it was time something was done to signal their dissatisfaction – especially as there were two acts of foul play by the Lions in the same Test which were allowed to go unpunished.

Right after Botha slammed into Adam Jones he was himself violently cleaned out by Lions hooker Matthew Rees – from the side and not head-on in the way he had confronted Jones.

The incident raised the question whether Botha had been cited because Jones had been injured and later in the same Test there was a heinous deed by Andrew Sheridan which was ignored by the citing officer – even though I know for a fact that he was alerted to it.

Sheridan twice punched Andries Bekker in the groin and the Boks rightly wanted to know why nothing was done about it.

In the third Test No8 Jamie Heaslip performed a clean-out almost identical to that which had got Bakkies Botha into trouble and again nothing was done.

And now Matt Giteau gets off scot-free for a flying forearm attack on Fourie du Preez that I have no doubt was done with serious intent to injure.

And when was the last time we saw such an aerial clash? Ah Schalk Burger against Samoa in the Boks’ opening game at the World Cup at the Parc des Princes in Paris. Burger at least was looking at the ball and trying to catch it before clattering into Junior Polu but what happened to him?

Oh yes he was cited, harassed and banned for six weeks – a shocking judgment that was later, at great expense and trouble to the South African camp, reduced to four weeks.

Giteau’s offence to my mind was worse, yet again showing up the gross inconsistency of rugby’s judiciary. There’s something rotten in the state of Union and instead of hounding the Springboks for a harmless gesture to draw attention to the appalling disciplinary contradictions the worthies of the IRB should be striving to put in place a system which is fair and objective.