An Eye For An Eye: Rugby’s Rampant Rise of Retina-Poking
Here in the States, athletes tend to get handcuffed to the “thug” label if they’re a little wild with their elbows, pitch a little too close on the inside corner, tackle a guy a split second later than necessary or get into the habit of pulling a fella’s jersey over his head.Rugbyers (rugby-ists? rugabillies?), on the other hand, really don’t start classifying their players as thugs until one of ‘em tries to scoop out an opponent’s eyes with his fingers when no one is looking.
South African Springboks flanker, Schalk Burger, was banned for eight weeks on Wednesday after digging into Lions winger Luke Fitzgerald (or “Squints” as I imagine he’s now called).
And just so’s we’re clear, eye-gouging is defined as “fiddling around, near or inside an opponent’s eye sockets.” What an adorable way to describe such a heinous act.
We’ve all imagined what it would be like to remove someone’s eyeballs from their skull at some point in our lives, right? You haven’t? Really? It’s not a preferable method of “aggressive sportsmanship.” It falls somewhere between headbutting and twisting someone’s private parts around while inside a scrum. It just so happens that rugby’s got a rule book (crazy, I know) and that rulebook lists verboten in-game activities.
4. Eye-gouging. 3. Private-manipulation. Honestly, besides decapitation and excessive Tori Amos-blasting, what could be worse than “forceful MANipulation?” 2. Biting. 1. Harassing the official.
But the story here isn’t that eye-gouging simply happened. As tough as rugby is, reporting a nasty incident would be like writing a breaking news item about a puppy pooping on the carpet: it’s not good, but it’s not surprising.
The news here is that Burger was caught so very red-handed and received such a minor penalty. Ten days before this incident, another eye-poker on another team received an 18 week suspension and he only gouged one eye. Where’s the justice in that? Burger doesn’t have the reputation of a dirty player and won the international player of the year five years ago. Still, eye-pokery is nasty business.
The news here is that Burger was caught so very red-handed and received such a minor penalty. Ten days before this incident, another eye-poker on another team received an 18 week suspension and he only gouged one eye. Where’s the justice in that? Burger doesn’t have the reputation of a dirty player and won the international player of the year five years ago. Still, eye-pokery is nasty business. And what’s worse, the head coach of the Springboks, wrote the incident off as if it was all just part of the game … despite the game’s rules clearly stating that it isn’t.
From the AP
Judge Jeff Blackett has been sitting on rugby disciplinary panels since 1998. In an interview this week, he said his “gut feeling” is that such cases have increased in the past two or three years. That could be because video scrutiny and better refereeing have reduced other, more visible types of fouls.
If video scrutiny is marking its territory on rugby’s worst offenders, how might one explain Burger’s attack on Fitzgerald? Ain’t no secret ’bout what’s happening HERE (not gory, but not necessarily pleasant either).
The cherry on the sundae (which totally looks like a bloody eye) is that the coach of the world champion Springboks seemed to taunt the idea of disciplining a player for trying to blind an opponent. “Why don’t we all go to the nearest ballet shop, get some nice tutus and get a great dancing show going on,” he said. “No eye-gouging, no tackling, no nothing.”
Imagine if Charlie Manual, Phil Jackson or Mike Tomlin said that after a dirty move?
Posted by Adam
on Jul 2nd, 2009 and filed under Miscellaneous.
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