Rassie Erasmus voices his view on controversial Springbok tackle against……

Rassie Erasmus voices his view on controversial Springbok tackle against Scotland

South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus.

Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus is “comfortable” centre Jesse Kriel has not been cited for his tackle against Scotland in their 18-3 Rugby World Cup Pool B clash.

There was some confusion during and after the brutal Test as to why a Kriel tackle on Scotland number eight Jack Dempsey was not cited after heads collided.

Got the ball

It appears that the centre will not be cited for the dangerous tackle, with nothing being reported on Monday, and the 2019 World Cup-winning coach is happy with that as he believes Kriel got the ball.

“We are comfortable that they haven’t cited him, and we are very sure that there won’t be a citing,” Erasmus said earlier this week.

“There definitely wasn’t head-on-head contact, it was a tackle on the ball. He moved up after making the tackle on the ball.

“I’ve seen a few stills where that were taken just after Jesse made direct contact on the ball. You can make any tackle like that look really bad. If you look a millisecond or a second or two back, you will see that he clearly tackled on the ball.

“So, yeah, we are very happy with how it was refereed. We are happy with the decision that was made. I will be very surprised that, with first contact on the ball, there will be anything from that.”

Winning start to title defence

The Springboks will be happy with the victory over Scotland, which saw some brilliance from Manie Libbok as the playmaker’s no-look cross-kick resulted in a Kurt-Lee Arendse try.

However, the number 10 has copped criticism for his erratic performances off the tee, which saw his captain Siya Kolisi, passionately jump to his defence.

The world champions turn their attention to Romania, who they clash with on Sunday. South Africa will be looking to keep their momentum going with the all-important Test against Ireland following that.

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