{"id":168181,"date":"2025-12-04T18:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T18:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/168181\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T18:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T18:52:08","slug":"eben-etzebeth-receives-12-match-ban-for-eye-gouge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/168181\/","title":{"rendered":"Eben Etzebeth receives 12-match ban for eye-gouge"},"content":{"rendered":"

NZ Herald<\/p>\n

4 Dec, 2025 05:53 PM2 mins to read<\/p>\n

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Eben Etzebeth in action against the All Blacks. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n

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Springboks lock Eben Etzebeth has been banned from rugby until April after receiving a 12-match suspension for an eye gouge against Wales.<\/p>\n

The two-time World Cup winner was red-carded after he eye-gouged Wales flanker Alex Mann in South Africa\u2019s 73-0 win last weekend.<\/p>\n

\n An independent disciplinary panel determined that contact
\n with the eye was intentional and a \u201cmid-range\u201d entry point of 18 games was appropriate as a sanction.\n <\/p>\n

Mitigating factors, including the player\u2019s previous record, resulted in the suspension being reduced to 12 weeks.<\/p>\n

According to the Daily Mail, All Blacks vice-captain Ardie Savea provided a positive character reference for Etzebeth. The All Blacks and Springboks will meet in four tests next season as part of the new Greatest Rivalry series<\/a>, starting in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZ Herald 4 Dec, 2025 05:53 PM2 mins to read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[109321,74,9092,54170,1060,26977,1558,109319,109320,109322,2082,71,109323,48053,111,139,69,14901,49478,6327,213,8137,12066,698,1491],"class_list":["post-168181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-12match","tag-after","tag-against","tag-april","tag-ban","tag-banned","tag-been","tag-eben","tag-etzebeth","tag-eyegouge","tag-for","tag-from","tag-gouge","tag-lock","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-receives","tag-receiving","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-springboks","tag-suspension","tag-until","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}