VIDEO: WP wants to cite Bismarck for 'strike'
REACTION: There was a nasty aftermath to the Bulls versus Western Province Currie Cup Round Eight match at Loftus Versfeld on Wednesday.
The Bulls returned to the top of the Currie Cup table with a 45-34 win over Province.
However, both WP coach Jerome Paarwater and captain Nama Xaba fumed about a second-half incident involving the Bulls’ World Cup-winning Springbok hooker Bismarck du Plessis and visiting lock Ben-Jason Dixon.
Referee Griffin Colby and TMO Marius van der Westhuizen did look at the incident, but found no ‘clear’ evidence and no further action was taken.
In contrast three WP players were issued with yellow cards in a spiteful game – centre Cornel Smit (in the 23rd minute for repeated infringements), replacement flank Jarrod Taylor (on the hour mark for sliding with the knee into the back of a prone opponent on the ground after a try had been scored) and the skipper, Xaba, (78th, for cynically collapsing a maul).
This did not stop the Province coach and captain to insist that the Du Plessis incident should be revisited.
Paarwater acknowledged that he did not send Taylor back on, after his 10-minute sin-binning expired – following the WP flank’s decision to drive with his knees into an opponent on the ground after a try had been scored.
“That was a bad discipline call,” the coach said of Taylor’s behaviour.
He said that discipline goes both ways.
“If we make a mistake, we get a yellow card,” he told @rugby365com.
“There are no warnings, nothing.
“I am not going to blame my guys for their discipline, it is up to the referee to give a yellow card.”
He added that he hopes they can find an angle on the Bismarck du Plessis incident, so they can follow it up with a citing.
The captain was equally vocal about the Du Plessis incident.
(Continue below video …)
Does Bismarck throw a punch here? #CarlingCurrieCup pic.twitter.com/bBpLMWgciK
— Saffas Abroad Rugby (@SaffasRugby) April 7, 2022
“It was disappointing,” Xaba said about the inability of the TMO to find an angle with a clear view of the Du Plessis incident.
“It’s outrageous that they didn’t have an angle on it.
“I was right next to it and I saw a clear strike to the face of our lock, Ben-Jason [Dixon].
“It is very disappointing.
“In the context of the game, in the second half, they had scored a try. It could have been a potential red card or a yellow card.”
He said if the TMO had picked up the incident it would have reversed the try and momentum would have swung the way of WP.
“There is no place for that in the game,” the Province skipper said.
“I am disappointed that there wasn’t an angle. They did flag it initially, but I don’t know – in terms of the internal process – what went on.
“I tried my best to go up to the TMO and there just wasn’t an angle on it.”
Xaba insisted there was a “clear strike to the face” and said Dixon even has a bruise to his right eye.
Paarwater also hinted that the referee was not ‘even-handed’ with his handling of the set pieces – in particular the scrums, which were particularly messy on the soft underfoot conditions.
“Unfortunately, if we go down it is a penalty against us. If they go down, it is as reset for them,” the Province coach said.
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