Springboks legend demands ‘culture’ of diving is eradicated in wake of Wallabies star’s ‘gamesmanship’
Springboks legends Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger, and Jac Morgan clearout on Carlo Tizzano.
Former Springboks captain Jean de Villiers is worried rugby is “becoming like football” with the simulation that is creeping into the game.
De Villiers’ comments were prompted by fellow South African Schalk Burger, who discussed the recent British and Irish Lions series, and specifically the Jac Morgan incident.
Morgan cleared out Carlo Tizzano at the end of the second Test and the Wallabies flanker immediately clutched his head.
There may have been contact with the top of the back and neck area, but it was a rather dramatic fall and Tizzano was criticised for his actions afterwards.
He is not the first to do that in the sport, however, with ‘diving’ becoming more and more common over recent years.
France international forced to apologise
France international Nolann Le Garrec was slammed in April this year for going down holding his face following an accidental collision with Perpignan prop Bruce Devaux, for which he apologised afterwards.
“Gamesmanship is getting into it. Tizzano did do that to trigger the television match official, which he did,” Burger said on the Boks Unpacked podcast.
“It’s also the way we’ve been conditioned through what has been now the norm of yellow cards and red cards, and what we’ve seen over the last five years of nonsense, of a rugby incident being seen as foul play.
“Jac Morgan summed it up perfectly in his post-match interview where he said the clean felt good until he saw it on television and then all of a sudden, with the crowd, it sort of flips and looks bad.
“We’ve got the Aussie feed and the narrative driven there is it’s a penalty and a yellow card.
“It’s two players getting to the breakdown at the same time and you can actually see him wrapping with his left arm and hitting at the top of the shoulder – it’s the perfect clean.”
Jean de Villiers’ theory
De Villiers then chimed in, offering a theory as to why simulation has crept into the sport.
The Boks legend feels that the laws around head contact has contributed to players feigning injury in an attempt to get the officials involved.
“If you want to start talking about gamesmanship, it’s the behaviour which has been created because of the way the rules are being interpreted,” he said.
“Literally, we are becoming like football where guys are rolling and going down because they are trying to milk a penalty.
“That behaviour needs to get out of rugby and if we don’t do that then unfortunately the culture we are creating is not the one we want for rugby.”
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