Africa-Press – South-Africa. Griquas have been left frustrated by South Africa’s shorter work-week this week as they’re still awaiting the outcome of Kudzwai Dube’s disciplinary hearing in front of a SA Rugby judicial committee.
The 23-year-old prop, who joined Griquas last year after a highly successful junior career at the Bulls, was last weekend cited for a bizarre incident where he spat directly in the face of his direct opponent from the Griffons, Doctor Booysen.
He was, unsurprisingly, shown a yellow card too in the 41-27 victory in Welkom.
Yet the verdict has not been forthcoming, prompting head coach Pieter Bergh to leave Dube out of the match-23 for Saturday’s Currie Cup trip to Durban to face the Sharks.
“We really hoped that the verdict would’ve been made public by [Thursday] morning. We’re hoping we get it by the end of the day,” he said.
Except that the process has robbed them of an increasingly important player for this week, there’s also the risk of Dube being handed a multi-match ban at a key stage of the campaign.
In fact, Bergh believes there simply had to be mitigating factors because of the front rower’s otherwise squeaky clean disciplinary record.
Booysen himself was alleged to have spat at Dube first, but has been cleared of wrongdoing.
“From our side, we felt that there had been provocation,” said Bergh.
“He was spat on first and then retaliated in the heat of the moment. It’s simply not his character to do something like that with malicious intent. He’s never even been shown a red card in his career to date.
“We firmly believe he was provoked and I hope that has an influence on the verdict.”
The incident soured that was already a bizarre outing in the Northern Free State.
The Griffons notably scored a “ten-point” try when flanker Thato Mavundla and hooker Dandre Delport both dotted down from an attacking maul, only for everyone to realise that two balls had been on the field by accident.
Delport had made his throw into the lineout and then saw the other ball lying on the ground, assuming that it had popped out of the driving pile of bodies.
Instead, the “real” ball was in Mavundla’s arms.
Referee Morne Ferreira brought play back to the original set-piece, but Delport at least had the satisfaction of crossing the whitewash later.
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