The Schalk Burger eye gouging incident
Schalk Burger has received an 8-week ban for this horrific offence in the first minute of the Second Test on Saturday.
Here is the replay of the incident. Make up your own mind – a red card offence? Surely anything that warrants a ban has to be a red card offence if it is spotted by officials.
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- Eye-gouging: Why have regulations if they aren’t enforced? | The Rugby Blog - [...] See the Schalk Burger clip here [...]
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Unless I’m mistaken, this was the ref’s first test match? I reckon it would have been a pretty big call for him to show Burger a red card all of 32 seconds into the match. He sure would have made a name for himself though!
It doesn’t matter if its his first test match or his 100th. The laws and rules are there to be followed and he did not do that. I am intrigued though as to why a ref without suitable expeience was picked for such a big occassion?
Stuart – you obviously know something i don’t? lol
Cubix. There is no way supporters will start taking it out on each other – this isn’t football. However, if they do, i will stop having any involvement in rugby (supporting, playing etc etc). I have not watched or play football for about 10 years because i hate the way the game is played and supported. I just hope our beloved game isn’t going to go the same way
I,ve watched Rugby union for most of my life and no one can deny that its a hard physical contact sport.Ive seen many SA plyers come into the english game and they are by far the most aggresive,brutal and unspotsman like of any other nationality.I,ve also worked with many and they do appear to have a serios attitude problem.Until we have serios penalties for this type of behaviour and bans of months rather than weeks we will never rid the sport of this unwanted and dangerous practice.a northampton Saints player was given a 16 week ban at the start of last season,this should be a minimum ban throughout the rugby playing world.one final comment,the SA coach should be removed from his post immediately,even though he retracted his comments it gave everyone an insight into his thinking.
Uncle Mat you are an idiot in any case. Look carefully at the time the incident happened, they were both falling and SB’s face was turned away from him. The fact is that in any case there are some extenuating circumstances. It was definitely not clear cut and you POMS should really start to wake up and smell the coffee.
Do you know Schalk, uncle Mat and all you other pricks on this site? Do you know what type of person he is? Schalk is good person. Condemn the action not the guy. Schalk has a good track record and it was definitely not intentional. Should he have gotten a red card? Most probably, but even the refs didn’t know if it was intentional.
I can’t believe the type of drivel that goes on on this sight. Unfortunately I don’t have all week to respond to all this crap. Like Jeffrey Smith…do you know that it was proven that the most arrogant of all nations are the POMS? You are even worse than the Americans. The only thing that is killing rugby for me is uninformed, idiotic, self-centerd freakin’ idiots that don’t know what they are talking about. You guys are worse than PdV. Bunch of hooligans.
Very interesting point of view Ryno. Hope you don’t mind or think of me as a “whinging pom”, but I would like to discuss your comments.
Firstly, you do know that your stereotyping all “poms”, the way that most “poms” have stereotyped Burger – does that not make you just as bad?
Secondly. Whether Burger had intent or not, it was eye gouging and it was dangerous. Do you have to facing someone in order to know what it is you are doing? You asked to condemn the action, not the person. Well the action (as you said yourself) should have been a red card and he also got off very lightly with an 8 week ban.
Thirdly, out of all the “uniformed, idiotic, self centered freakin idiots” that don’t know what they are talking about and are using this site, you are the only one using aggressive and abusive language towards individuals and other nations. Surely that makes you as bad if not worse than us hooligans?
Rugby (unlike football) has always appealed to the masses because no matter which team you support and no matter what the score, everyone comes together, has a good time and discusses the issues without any malice. Why does that have to be different now?
Ryno, I can see you don’t understand rugby very well, and that you have difficulty understanding some of the points made on this site. Rather than moaning about that here though, can I suggest you fuck off and waste someone else’s time instead?
I’m a Canadian and in my opinion, the idiot Canadian official who came up with the eight week ban should check to see if he still has a pair. WTF? No red card and an eight week ban. That’s it. Clearly, there is a double standard being applied to the xxxing Springboks.
I think my observation regarding South Africans is shown to be completely acurate.Sounds like Rino needs to get back in the animal world where he plainly belongs.
Aaah Ryno, so sweet. You really are a bit of a simpleton aren’t you. This is a clear cut incident and I’m sure any neutral viewers would have no doubt about it. Asking whether we ‘know’ Shalk Burger is ridiculous – as a rugby player he is defined by his actions on the field of play. (There are plenty of murderers I don’t know but I think it is safe to assume that perhaps they are not nice by virtue of their actions! I don’t need to know them to know this).
Ultimately, there is no room for this sort of behaviour in rugby. And whining about how poms whine – is that really the best you’ve got? Seriously?
Incidentally, you do realise that few of the Lions are actually poms? As for the intent of Burger, he hunts around for the eye socket with his fingers – he really should have been banned for at least a year.
What’s a crying shame, as a neutral, I think the Lions were a better side, and should have taken the series. SA are very very good but over rated (just beaten by 2 English club sides in 2 weeks!)
P.s Ryno, please don’t reply. It won’t be read.