Junior Springboks hooker, Tiaan van der Merwe.
Rugby: Baby Bok cops lengthy ban for verbal abuse
The youngster will miss the rest of the Lions’ Rugby Challenge fixtures.
Junior Springboks hooker, Tiaan van der Merwe.
Junior Boks’ hooker, Tiaan van der Merwe will be out of action for six weeks, thanks to a foul mouth.
The front-rower landed himself in trouble during his side’s semi-final defeat to England when he verbally abused one of the opposition’s lock forwards, Joel Kpoku.
For his troubles, Van der Merwe – a Golden Lions player – was summoned to a disciplinary hearing which was held earlier this week, where it was found that he made “a serious and gross verbal abuse of a highly offensive sexual nature in relation to a player’s mother accompanied by a highly offensive sexual gesture”.
He was cited under Law 9.12, which states the following;
A player must not verbally abuse anyone. Verbal abuse includes – but is not limited to – abuse based on religion, colour, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation.
Read: Ashwin Willemse breaks his silence following SuperSport probe
The player was initially handed a 12-week ban, but following his guilty plea, his suspension cut in half, as it was reduced to six weeks.
Another WR disciplinary judgement was for Tiaan van der Merwe, the Junior Springbok’s hooker who had an altercation with England u20’s 2nd row Joel Kpoku.
He was given a 6 week ban (12 weeks minus 6 deductions) for some pretty vile abuse
Link here: https://t.co/829smscVpP
— rugby (@theblitzdefence) June 20, 2018
This means that he will be out of action for the rest of the Lions’ Rugby Challenge fixtures, and also miss out on the opening U21 Championship game, which takes place in August.
The Baby Boks had a disappointing run in the Junior World Championships, as they crashed out in the semifinals, suffering a narrow defeat to England, as they went down 32-31. This after they were thrashed by France in the pool stages of the competition.
They, however, redeemed themselves, by handing pre-tournament favourites, New Zealand a 40-30 defeat in the third-place play-offs, in what was an entertaining try-scoring fest.
Read: Ashwin Willemse: Sports Minister satisfied with findings
Tags:
