{"id":785332,"date":"2026-09-28T14:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/785332\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T14:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:08:13","slug":"not-the-game-i-want-hansen-blasts-integrity-issue-after-wallabies-boks-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/785332\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Not the game I want’: Hansen blasts \u2018integrity\u2019 issue after Wallabies-Boks clash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published: 2 hours ago | 28 September 2026 07:39 EDT
Updated: 2 hours ago | 28 September 2026 07:50 EDT <\/p>\n

mens<\/p>\n

international<\/p>\n

Springboks players react after the loss during the match between Australia Wallabies and South Africa Springboks at Optus Stadium on September 27, 2026 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by James Worsfold\/Getty Images) \"Google <\/a> <\/p>\n

Former All Blacks<\/a> head coach Steve Hansen has taken aim at what he believes is a growing problem with diving in rugby, accusing players of going to ground in order to slow matches down or prompt intervention from the TMO.<\/p>\n

Hansen made the comments on the Rugby Unity<\/a> podcast following Australia\u2019s 42-38 victory over South Africa<\/a> in Perth on Sunday, with the Wallabies holding off a late Springbok fightback to secure the win.<\/p>\n

The 2015 World Cup-winning coach suggested the issue is becoming increasingly common across the game, and even pointed to South Africa\u2019s women\u2019s side as an example of a team using injury stoppages to disrupt the flow of a match.<\/p>\n

Hansen believes players are now going to ground in the hope that officials will review incidents, comparing the practice to diving in football and questioning whether it sits comfortably with rugby\u2019s values. The issues of diving and time wasting were recurring complaints during Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series, with the Springboks repeatedly accused of slowing the game down, and All Blacks scrum-half Cam Roigard at the heart of an infamous diving incident.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The 67-year-old was particularly concerned by the implications for the sport\u2019s integrity, insisting that repeated attempts to manufacture stoppages are not something he wants to see become part of Test rugby.<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team <\/p>\n

\u201cHow many times you go through Test matches, both the women\u2019s, because South Africa did it in the women\u2019s game against the Black Ferns, they slowed the game right down with injuries every two seconds,\u201d Hansen said on the podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got divers now in our game. It used to be only in football. Now we got divers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then if that doesn\u2019t get a result, they\u2019ll get someone else to go down so the TMO can go back and look at the diver. Now, what was he diving about?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, so you\u2019re talking about integrity. Is that the game we want?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not the game I want and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not the game that a lot of people want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 2 hours ago | 28 September 2026 07:39 EDT Updated: 2 hours ago | 28 September 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-785332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785332","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=785332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}