Ospreys face ‘cheating’ accusations after Sharks’ Springboks stars denied ‘contest’ following possible ‘fake injuries’
Sharks head coach JP Pietersen and Springboks prop Ox Nche.
JP Pietersen has raised questions as to whether the Ospreys tried to manipulate the system in order to avoid scrummaging against the Sharks on Saturday.
The Welsh region had actually controlled the set-piece battle in the opening period, but once Springboks duo Ox Nche and Vincent Koch came on, that all changed.
Nche and Koch were marching forward, even on the Ospreys’ ball, and had an opportunity five metres out when the hosts’ prop Garyn Phillips was forced off with an injury.
With Gareth Thomas not fit enough to come back on, it went to uncontested scrums. Although Mark Jones’ men had to go down to 14 men for the rest of the game, the Sharks probably would have preferred having the set-piece advantage and may have forced the referee to act anyway given the dominance they had.
JP Pietersen suspicious of the Ospreys
Social media was of course awash with accusations of cheating but Pietersen himself wasn’t ruling it out and was suspicious over what occurred.
“In the second half we got more dominance through the scrums. We had an unbelievable three scrums where we dominated them and scrummed them off the ball,” the Sharks boss told reporters.
“That was good to see and obviously we were five metres out from the line. We scrummed them off the ball. We only get a five metre scrum back, then their prop gets injured.
“To be honest, that is question mark. We don’t know, did he get injured or were the Ospreys taking the contest away from us?
“We were confident of getting a scrum penalty, which probably would have changed the game.
“We don’t know for sure and I can’t talk on behalf of the Ospreys, but it certainly took the contest away from the game.”
The actions of the Ospreys were also questioned by South African pundits after the game with former sevens star Jonathan Mokuena telling Pietersen to go a step further.
“If I was JP Pietersen and the management, I would definitely be having a look at that. For one, I would want to see an injury report on the players that actually went off the field,” he said.
“If they decided to fake an injury, that’s against the laws of the game.
“At the time I found that the Sharks were slowly but surely starting to find their mojo. Ox Nche and Vincent Koch were really doing well applying pressure on their own ball and the opposition ball, so it’s something the Sharks need to look in to.”
Mokuena did state that it was not the reason they lost the match, however, as the Sharks’ season effectively ended following their disappointing 21-17 reversal in Wales.
It was another poor performance from the Durban outfit, whose United Rugby Championship play-off chances now appear to be over as they reside 11 points outside the top-eight.
“Irrespective, they had an opportunity to win the game. I think for me that would be the bigger worry, in terms of finding answers for that, rather than the fact that the Ospreys ‘cheated’ to win the game,” Mokuena added.
Ospreys explanation
The Ospreys also had their say on the incident and head coach Jones insisted that there was nothing untoward from their perspective.
“The medical room’s pretty full. Gar (Gareth Thomas) went off with a bump to the head and he had a little problem with his shoulder as well, so we made the tactical substitution there to try and alleviate that,” he said.
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“And Garyn’s too fast for his own good. He pulled his hamstring when he was scoring the try. To be fair to him, he dug in as long as he could but clearly he couldn’t pack down at scrum-time and couldn’t move around the field.
“It was unsafe for him to be out there so unfortunately we have to go down to 14, so that poses problems for both sides. We had to deal with it and thankfully we managed to deal with that whole scenario for about 20 minutes.
“It was tough because you’re down to 14 against a very good team.”
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