Rassie Erasmus’ latest social media post highlighting officiating discrepancies during the Test between the Springboks and Ireland has been heavily criticised in the UK media.
In the aftermath of Saturday’s Test, which Ireland won 19-17, Erasmus posted a video on social media highlighting two similar incidents which were handled differently by referee Nika Amashukeli.
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The first came in the build-up to Ireland’s second try, when it appeared that the ball was kicked out of a Springbok breakdown by an Irish player, but play was allowed to go on before wing Mack Hansen scored in the corner.
In the second incident, the ball is kicked out of an Ireland breakdown and the Springboks are penalised, just as Eben Etzebeth gathers and streaks upfield.
In a column for the Telegraph, UK-based writer Charles Richardson said “Erasmus is up to his old, wicked tricks with referees”.
“Those refereeing decisions almost do not warrant deeper analysis; to do so dignifies Erasmus’s actions, which now teeter firmly on the seesaw between unsporting and churlish desperation to sociopathic obsession,” wrote Richardson.
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“Officials can have bad matches, of course, but it is worth pondering, in such matches, how many neutrals would say that the unequivocally superior team lost? Would any objective observer of Saturday’s titanic tussle in Dublin really argue that, over the course of 80 minutes, the Springboks were robbed?
“Who is Erasmus to say, too, that if Hansen’s try had been ruled out, that Ireland would not have scored an entirely legitimate try later in the piece anyway?
“And Erasmus’s time would be better spent getting his own house in order before attempting to knock down someone else’s.”
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Photo: Gallo Images
