Flip van der Merwe slams ban after pushing ref

This week he took to Twitter to express his disappointment in the decision, and in what rugby has become.

"I love rugby, but I do hate what it has become! 4 weeks for this? #getoutofmyway" tweeted the 36-times capped Springbok, along with the video.

In doing so, Van der Merwe shed light on the incident and received a large amount of support, with most echoing his sentiments on what was unfortunate but also appeared fairly innocuous.

Laying your hands on a referee is, of course, frowned upon and should never be done, it would appear that in this case he was merely moving the official out of the way as he was clearly blocking the lock's entrance to the breakdown.

While perhaps he could have been gentler, the referee himself was not particularly bothered, and he and Van der Merwe had a very brief chat about it at the time, with no on field sanction given.

Some former players joined Van der Merwe in condemning the ban, most agreeing that it is harsh.

Source: RugbyDump

I love rugby, but I do hate what it has become!! 4 weeks for this? #getoutofmyway pic.twitter.com/lyT0H3ZOly

— flip van der merwe (@flipvandermerwe) May 24, 2018

Crazy….

— Victor Matfield (@VictorMatfield) May 24, 2018

Sympathy pal !

— Jonathan Kaplan (@RefJK) May 24, 2018

Belaglik!

— Wilhelm Steenkamp (@wilhelmst5) May 25, 2018

Hang in @flipvandermerwe if it whas me it whas 8 weeks. I’m happy I retired become a joke now. Take care. 🏉🏉

— Bakkies Botha (@BakkiesBotha4) May 25, 2018