Schalk Burger has weighed in on James Ryan’s red card during the clash between Ireland and the Springboks on Saturday.
After Damian Willemse’s early try, Ireland looked to have scored the try that would level the scores as Tadhg Beirne thundered over the line.
However, the try was scrubbed off after TMO Andrew Jackson notified referee Matthew Carley that an act of potential foul play may have occurred.
Carley and his assistants reviewed the incident and eventually ruled out the try and issued a yellow card to Ryan for his dangerous ruck entry, as he flew into the breakdown with a tucked shoulder and made contact with Malcolm Marx’s head.
Unlike the previous incidents involving Springboks locks Lood de Jager and Franco Mostert, Ryan’s actions weren’t deemed to be always illegal, with Carley adding that the contact was ‘glancing’.
The referee ruled out the try and issued a yellow card to Ryan, with his actions sent to be reviewed by the foul play review officer, Dan Jones, who upgraded the sanction from a yellow card to a 20-minute red.
Schalk Burger’s verdict
This meant that Ireland were able to bring on a replacement for the second rower after a 20-minute sin-binning period instead of being down a player for the entirety of the match.
Speaking on The Verdict show, Springboks legend Burger reviewed the incident and was pleased that it was a 20-minute red card instead of a permanent one.
He believes that Ireland were targeting Marx at the breakdown, because of the threat he poses in that area of the game and added that Ryan was eager to land a shot on the Bok front rower.
“Often, you can feel this when you are chasing rucks. So Malcolm chased the ruck prior to this; you could see there was obviously a target on his back. Ryan wanted to make contact, but didn’t,” Burger said, reviewing the previous rucks before the incident.
“Second ruck after that, he sees Malcolm and that ruck is already won. So all you can do is really just go sit on top of it, it’s done. Malcolm will probably have a nibble or slow try and slow it down. But I don’t think we can really complain about that [being a red card], back in our days, fine but in 2025, there’s no real mitigation there.
“I love the fact that it went to the bunker and not just a straight red, but yeah, the point of contact, the tucked shoulder or a little chicken wing – unfortunately, we can’t say anything, other than a 20-minute red was deserved.”
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Dirty play
Fellow former Springbok Jean de Villiers believes that Ryan’s actions were reckless and that he lost his cool.
“From a coaching point of view, that’s reckless. You can see the emotion maybe taking over there, prior to that, he lost his cool,” he said.
While ex-Springboks prop Hanyani Shimange felt that it was a dirty piece of play from the Irish lock and agreed with Burger that it was unnecessary too, as Ireland had pretty much won the ruck already.
“That is reckless, there’s a fine line between being the enforcer, being tough and being dirty. That’s being dirty,” Shimmy said.
“That’s a tucked arm into the head, he is not holding his body position up. There’s desperation to get in there, but it wasn’t needed… he just needed to go low, and almost park over that ruck and hold it.”