While Scottish fans are incensed that Jesse Kriel was not penalized, or indeed carded, for a dangerous tackle on Jack Dempsey, South Africa’s Director of rugby Rassie Erasmus says he does not think his player will be cited.
Rassie Erasmus (Pic – BackpagePix)
The incident, which happened early in the game, left many Scots incredulous that the TMO had not brought the incident to the referees’ attention. But Erasmus said nothing had been said to the referee because the incident was perfectly legal.
Erasmus, who has been quite outspoken in his criticism of referees in the past, said he was very happy with the Sunday’s game had been blown. Speaking to the media he said:
“We’re really comfortable, there hasn’t been any citing yet, and I’m pretty sure there won’t be a citing.”
“… It was tackled on the ball, and then it moved up after tackling on the ball.”
“I’ve seen a few stills… just after direct contact with the ball and then, you can make that look really bad. When you get to go back a millisecond or a second or two, you’ll see that he (Jesse) clearly tackled on the ball. We’re very happy with how it was refereed.”
“There were close calls and I think Russell’s call was much closer, but, unfortunately, he got injured and I think that deflected a little bit from the action he did. We were happy with the decision that was made and obviously there is some time to do a citing.”
“However, I’ll be very surprised that, with the indirect contact with first contact on the ball, that there will be anything from that.”
