{"id":166827,"date":"2025-11-30T00:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T00:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/166827\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T00:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T00:56:09","slug":"the-optics-dont-look-good-rassie-wont-defend-eben-etzebeth-after-sickening-eye-gouge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/166827\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The Optics Don&#8217;t Look Good&#8217;: Rassie Won&#8217;t Defend Eben Etzebeth After Sickening Eye Gouge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa finished their November window unbeaten after defeating Wales 73-0 in Cardiff today. That result, however, has been blemished by the actions of one of the Springboks longest serving players.<\/p>\n<p>With one minute left on the clock, and the Springboks leading by 73 points, Eben Etzebeth received a straight red card for putting his thumb into the eye of Alex Mann of Wales. Mann reacted angrily &#8211; unsurprisingly &#8211; and the Sharks captain would be sent to the showers.<\/p>\n<p>It was a moment of madness right out of rugby&#8217;s bad old days and Etzebeth will certainly be facing a long ban.<\/p>\n<p>\n        Recommended\n    <\/p>\n<p>                        <a :href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/rugby\/article.url\" :title=\"article.title\" :aria-label=\"article.title\" class=\"not-prose col-span-2 md:col-span-1 ga-event\" data-category=\"Recommended Article Tracker\" data-action=\"click\" :data-label=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/rugby\/article.url\" :data-value=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/rugby\/article.url\"><\/p>\n<p>                                            <img class=\"aspect-video\" width=\"130\" height=\"73\" :src=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/rugby\/article.image\" :alt=\"'Image for: ' + article.title\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p>On BBC Radio Wales, Wales great James Hook called it as he saw it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That\u2019s a red card. He can&#8217;t get away with that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">I\u2019ve not seen a eye gouging like that in a long time.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Completely unnecessary. <\/p>\n<p>Brain-less from Eben Etzebeth. A long ban loading.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WALvRSA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#WALvRSA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VWFwTt9tAD\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/VWFwTt9tAD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jaredwright17\/status\/1994815932959789277?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There was added consternation from Mann that Etzebeth was allowed back onto the field for the post-match handshakes. Mann was not pleased and further words were exchanged on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"685\" width=\"991\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/039-the-optics-don-039-t-look-good-039-rassie-won-039-t-defend-eben-etzebeth-after-sickening-eye.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-645323 max-w-970 w-full\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Per Alex Bywater of the Daily Mail, Rassie Erasmus offered no defense for his player when addressing the incident in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know what I can say that isn\u2019t controversial. It didn\u2019t look good. It was a justified red card. It\u2019s definitely not the way we\u2019d have liked to have ended the game. The optics weren\u2019t great<\/p>\n<p>Springboks captain Siya Kolisi meanwhile claimed Etzebeth&#8217;s actions weren&#8217;t intentional in a post-match interview with TNT Sports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure he didn&#8217;t mean to do that on purpose. You go for an eye gouge, you know what happens after that. We said sorry to the guy [Mann] already but I don&#8217;t want that to be the highlight of the day, it&#8217;s been a good day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>SEE ALSO: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/rugby\/rugby-world-in-disbelief-after-leinster-man-avoids-penalty-for-tackle-in-dragons-game-645314\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby World In Disbelief After Leinster Man Avoids Penalty For Tackle In Dragons Game<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa finished their November window unbeaten after defeating Wales 73-0 in Cardiff today. That result, however, has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[92599,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-166827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-eben-etzebeth","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}