Eben Etzebeth, the Springboks lock serving a 12-week ban for eye-gouging Alex Mann of Wales, has claimed it was \u201cnever intentional\u201d, contradicting the verdict of an independent disciplinary committee announced last week.<\/p>\n
In an Instagram post on Wednesday the Sharks second row accepted guilt and apologised, saying \u201cunfortunately mistakes happen\u201d. The 34-year-old double Rugby World Cup winner also appeared to distance himself from the act by drawing attention to \u201cother factors\u201d. Along with three videos accompanying the post, Etzebeth claimed two Welsh players involved in the fracas, along with Mann, changed \u201cthe dynamic of the entire picture\u201d.<\/p>\n
Etzebeth will be sidelined until April after an 18-week ban, for what was deemed a mid-range offence, was reduced to 12 weeks due to mitigating factors including his previous good disciplinary record.\u201cI\u2019ve been quiet, but now that my hearing is done, I think I owe everyone an explanation,\u201d Etzebeth wrote. \u201cI accept guilt. I made a mistake and I\u2019m willing to serve a suspension which I deserve \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want young kids who look up to the Springboks to think that it\u2019s OK to eye gouge someone, because it\u2019s not, but unfortunately mistakes happen \u2026 I would never do something like this on purpose, I know what the consequences will be after playing rugby for a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n
As in his evidence to the \u00addisciplinary hearing, Etzebeth said he had been struck by Mann in his neck\/chin area, which was not spotted by the officials, before retaliating with an open-handed blow.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can clearly see my first point of contact is against his shoulder with an open hand, just like he did, except he got me on the chin,\u201d Etzebeth wrote.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I went for the same open hand towards his shoulder, you\u2019ll see two Welsh players changing the dynamic of the entire picture, as well as one of my teammates pulling [Mann] around his neck away from my hand and where my force is going.\u201d<\/p>\n Etzebeth said this led to what he claims was an accidental eye-gouge. \u201cWhy did I post this?\u201d Etzebeth added. \u201cTo try and show people how everything happened and that it was never intentional. I would never do something like this on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHaving considered the Player\u2019s and other evidence and reviewed the footage, and for the reasons set out in the full written decision \u2026 the Disciplinary Committee have determined that contact with the eye was intentional,\u201d stated an update from the Quilter Nations Series, announcing the verdict last Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eben Etzebeth, the Springboks lock serving a 12-week ban for eye-gouging Alex Mann of Wales, has claimed it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-309474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}