VIDEO: Rassie's take on Wiese's red card
WATCH as Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus speaks about No.8 Jasper Wiese’s red card incident during South Africa’s 45-0 victory against Italy.
The Boks, for the second week running, didn’t fire on all cylinders against a plucky Italian outfit despite the scoreboard telling a different story.
The breakdowns were an issue once again, as they were at Loftus Versfeld during the first Test, but this wasn’t their biggest issue of the match in Gqeberha.
Bok No.8 Jasper Wiese was shown a red card in the 20th minute of the match for an alleged headbutt.
Four minutes after half-time, prop Wilco Louw was sent to the sin-bin for a dangerous head-on-head clash which left the Boks playing with 13 players for three minutes after Italy’s Danilo Fischetti suffered the same fate in the 47th minute.
Although this didn’t hamper the Boks or had an effect on the result, it is a worrying concern should they play any top-five-ranked side in the world and be reduced to 14 players or fewer.
Erasmus came out in support of Wiese, stating that he is not a malicious player by nature but will wait and see what the outcome of his disciplinary hearing will be.
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“We don’t know who is going to judge on how bad it was or how they will see it.
“Obviously, Jasper [Wiese] will have an opinion on what happened and why it got to the point that it happened.
“I’m not in a position now to judge whether it was right or wrong or how bad it was.
“Jasper must handle that now with our support as best as he can.
“He’s just so committed and passionate about the team, and then something like that happens.
“I know it would’ve been lovely for him to play alongside his brother [Cobus Wiese], and unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
“It’s sad. He’s not a guy who goes out to do things like that.
“I don’t want to say anything here that can make things better or worse because I’m not 100 percent sure how they [the disciplinary committee] will judge it or how they will take it forward.
“But we will give him all our support and all the legal help that we possibly can.”
