I didn’t see the Botha incident last week as I was in a pub in Edinburgh on a stag do, so with the Saffas armbands ive just had a look again via YouTube.
Have to say, I have every sympathy with Botha. Looked OK to me on the angle I saw. Through the gate and arm looked to be involved.
However, he was cited and found guilty by a completely neutral set of observers. Haven’t seen the judgement so cant explain it really. I can only assume there are other camera angles with cast doubt on the use of the arm, and therefore it was a dangerous charge.
For the South Africans to all be wearing ‘justice’ armbands in support of their comrade is outrageous. I hope the IRB come down on them all for bringing the game into disrepute. There are ways of challenging bans and clearly they could have appealed (busy week so this may have happened and I missed it and it was upheld) or they decided not to appeal in which makes today’s decision even more bizarre.
Time for the IRB to step up to the plate. The World Cup champions are challenging the authority of the ruling body of the sport. They mustn’t sweep this under the carpet.
RefBlog - Views from a Rugby Referee 