Springbok loose forward Jasper Wiese has escaped sanction for his dangerous cleanout in the Test against the Wallabies in Brisbane this past Saturday.
Wiese was yellow-carded in the second half of the Boks’ 30-17 loss to Australia for a dangerous cleanout at a ruck.
Upon further review of the match footage, the citing commissioner deemed, in his opinion, the incident had met the red-card threshold for foul play and thus cited the player for contravening Law 9.12 (a player must not physically abuse anyone).
Wiese has since been left out of the Bok match-day 23 for their upcoming Test against the All Blacks because his hearing had been delayed beyond the timing of coach Jacques Nienaber’s team announcement on Tuesday.
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The disciplinary hearing has since taken place, but the Sanzaar judicial committee found Wiese not guilty of contravening Law 9.12 and therefore no further sanction has been imposed leaving him free to play.
Judicial committee chair Michael Heron said that a three-person panel reviewed the case in accordance with Reg 17.16.1 of World Rugby’s regulations and the World Rugby head contact process and cleared Wiese after viewing footage of the incident from all available angles.
“Having conducted a detailed review of all the available evidence, including all camera angles and additional evidence, including from the player, a medical report on the opposition player involved, and having considered the submissions from his legal representative, Attie Heyns, the Judicial Committee found that the Player had not committed an act of foul play worthy of the red card threshold.
“Mr Wiese is therefore free to play in the upcoming matches.”
The official statement from Sanzaar on the matter reads:
“The evidence and submissions on behalf of the player, together with surrounding circumstances, satisfied the Committee that the Citing Commissioner was not correct to find there was a high degree of danger involved.
“Whilst the Australian player was vulnerable, the contact with the head was not intentional or highly reckless. Wiese was shown to be grabbing for the ball rather than targeting the head of the Australian player. The low force, modest speed, indirect contact and the turning motion used by Weise, meant that the situation was not a highly dangerous one [when compared to the World Rugby examples].
“The Australian player was completely uninjured and his statement suggested the contact looked more serious than it was. There was no adverse reaction by any of the players to the conduct. The referee was in a very good position to see the actions of Wiese.
“For those reasons, the Committee was satisfied that the Referee [with the assistance of the TMO] was correct to award a yellow card in the circumstances. The Committee reinforced that the Citing Commissioner was otherwise correct to find that this was foul play, and at least warranted a yellow card in the circumstances.”
Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images
