Go Piet!

I secretly rejoiced when Springbok coach Peter de Villiers was cleared of misconduct charges related to comments made during a Fox TV programme. It probably irked our Australasian friends intensely that the presiding authority was a South African based judicial officer acting for Sanzar.

PdV’s comment that maybe it was the right thing for New Zealand to win their matches at home with a World Cup looming was construed as a thinly veiled attack on the integrity of rugby’s adjudicators.

It should have rather been seen as a voice of frustration over inconsistent refereeing in a game muddled by a slew of ever-changing, over-complicated and difficult to adjudicate rules.

The game of rugby, from a rules perspective, remains in crisis. They keep changing, ostensibly to make the game more attractive to the spectators. Too many rules are open to the individual interpretation of a referee. The ambiguity is marring the game from school to international level and may explain in part why teams seem to do better at home.

Stand at the side of a field on any given Saturday and listen to the pundits disputing the decisions.

Spare a thought for the poor referee. Irish referee Alain Rolland was roundly criticised in South Africa for his handling of the second Tri-Nations game this year. Yet just a year ago, Spiro Zavos, a Rugby Heaven reporter with fierce anti-Bok sentiment, reported that the Boks profited from British referees, citing the same Rolland as favouring the Boks!

If we don’t know. And they don’t know. Who knows?

As for the recent yellow-card fetish: five yellow cards and one red in five matches. It’s ruining the contest. Hopefully there will be a backlash. A South African linesman was suspended for ruling too strictly on Drew Mitchell. One wonders why Alan Lewis’s trigger-like yellow card — rather than first warning — for Bakkies Botha in the first Tri-Nations game (not for the head-butt, but for slowing the ball down) did not attract similar censure. Has anyone asked why Jacque Fourie got four weeks suspension and Quade Cooper only two weeks for the same tackle?

And if you think it’s only SA complaining, an Ozzy website said of the referee’s failure to sin bin All Black Tony Woodcock for a reckless clear out on Saia Faingaa: “It was the sort of offence that would’ve seen Bakkies Botha suspended for months but Woodcock was only penalised.”

So good on Peter for being bold enough to point out the obvious!

Peter de Villiers is the Tabasco in world rugby sauce, the most colourful Springbok coach ever. Contrast him with Johan Claassen or John Williams, Rudolph Strauli and Andre Markgraaff! They looked so stern, more like they were burying soldiers than playing rugby. Love or hate him, PdV has added a unique splash of spice to a monotonous commentary dominated by staid ex- players, the like of Bob “The Cliché” Skinstad.

De Villiers has worked our Tri-Nations partners into a frothy. They are begging us to retain him as coach, sure that such folly will cost us the cup. First Brendan Cannon called him a clown and was made to apologise. Then Richard Loe added his weight to the tirade. Remember Loe from the WC final in Johannesburg, 1995? He came charging on as a replacement in extra time only to be admonished by Ed Morrison and concede a vital penalty. We should name a beer after him. When ex-Wallaby and All Black front rows are having a go at our coach, you know for sure we’ve got them confused.

A real highlight of the subterfuge was De Villiers’s clever identification of a fiendish plot to wrest rugby glory from the Bokke. It was, wait for it, a conspiracy. Someone believed him. Sarfu have got Judge Mpati investigating. It would be great fun to get sight of the judge’s working papers.

I know he has many doubters, but Peter de Villiers makes a fresh change from the usual bland feedback that coaches and captains dish up weekend after weekend.

Losing coach: Uh. We didn’t play well or use our opportunities. We missed first time tackles. They used their opportunities.

Winning coach: It was a hard-fought encounter. We used our opportunities and put points on the board.

Big yawn.

We’ve got Piet Skiet.

Piet: if you want to run with the big dogs you’ve got to lift a leg.

How about: rugby is a contact sport, and so is dancing. His most recent beauty was a defiant “I take it with an inch of salt“.

When he’s in town there’s not an empty seat in the press room, Ozzy or Kiwi hacks jockeying for the plastic bucket seats, and straining to catch a glimpse of his twitching moustache. Even his sex scandal was handled with almost hilarious retort. Joost could take a lesson or two from him.

You might think it frivolous to make light of what is a very serious business: winning the World Cup away in New Zealand. But let’s not be too hard on him. We could have French coach Daniel Dubroca who pushed New Zealand referee Dave Bishop in the tunnel and accused him of cheating when England beat France in WC 1991.

Peter de Villiers coached a winning Springbok Under-21 World Cup team. Most importantly he seems to understand that the team he inherited can play on the moon. He should be judged on what he achieves on the rugby field, not on his limitations with the English language, nor on his slightly embarrassing outbursts.

I’ll reserve judgment until after the Tri-Nations home games.

I just wish he’d take my advice about Eddie Jones.