Former All Blacks wing Jeff Wilson has delivered a blistering assessment of Franco Mostert’s red card in Turin.
Speaking on Sky Sport NZ’s The Breakdown, Wilson said rugby is entering “dangerous territory” as referees continue to issue full on-field red cards for marginal collisions, insisting officials are now punishing physical teams like South Africa simply for “getting it slightly wrong”.
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Wilson believes the precedent set last week, when Lood de Jager received a permanent red card for a similar tackle, placed huge pressure on referee James Doleman in Turin.
“South Africa are physical players and at the moment they’re getting punished for that when they get it slightly wrong. We’re getting into dangerous territory now,” Wilson said.
“We’ve seen across the entire weekend – and not just this weekend but last weekend as well – they [referees] are very quick to jump on these. The precedent was set with the first on-field full red, and I think James Doleman almost felt a responsibility because he had seen all the footage from last weekend. It’s virtually the same contact and he would’ve been thinking ‘World Rugby is watching, I can’t afford to let this one go’. That’s just ridiculous.”
Wilson then turned to the match itself, praising a Springbok outfit that once again brushed off adversity to finish clinical and composed.
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“How good are South Africa? Two weeks in a row, they’re down to 14 men and they just go about their business and find a way,” Wilson said.
“Italy were in this for long periods of time and I think they maybe would’ve told themselves they can taste a little bit of history. But then the Springboks just went up a gear. They scored a couple of tries when they were down to 13 men. They are some sort of rugby team at the moment which everyone is chasing.”
Photo: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images
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