Rassie Erasmus is not afraid to confront rugby referees for supposed errors.
But when Eben Etzebeth was sent off for eye gouging Alex Mann in South Africa's 73-0 thrashing of Wales this morning, Erasmus admitted “it was justified".
“How it happened and why it happened, whether it was provoked, I'm not sure,” the Springboks coach said. “But that's not the way we want to play.”
Etzebeth, the most capped Springbok ever, was handed a permanent red card in the 79th minute by Luc Ramos after video showed his right thumb in the left eye of Mann. They'd been part of a scuffle between the teams.
Ramos said on the field there was "a clear thumb in the eyes."
It was the first red card in Etzebeth's 141-Test, 13-year career. The lock went into the game as a replacement in the 51st minute and scored South Africa's 11th and last try.
He and Mann appeared to have angry words for each other as the teams shook hands post-match.
“I'm not going to comment in detail,” Wales coach Steve Tandy said. “You can see something. If it is what it is, it's not a great look.”
Springboks captain Siya Kolisi defended Etzebeth.
“I'm sure he didn't mean to do that on purpose,” Kolisi said. “You go for an eye gouge you know what happens after that (long sanctions). He said ‘Sorry’ to the guy already but I don't want that to be the highlight of the day. It's been a good day.”
It was the third red card in five games on South Africa's tour of Europe.
Lood de Jager was marched for head contact against France and Franco Mostert sent off for the same reason against Italy. But Mostert's red card was ultimately rescinded.
Meanwhile, every fear for Wales came to pass as South Africa bossed their rugby mismatch to an inevitable victory in a half-filled Principality Stadium.
The Springboks handed Wales its worst loss at home — second worst overall — and Wales was nilled in Cardiff for the first time since 1967.
South Africa scored 11 tries, two of them by flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, whose nine-of-11 goalkicking lifted his personal haul to 28 points. The player of the match was wrecking ball midfielder Andre Esterhuizen.
The Welsh Rugby Union has stabilised its finances to the point of earning a profit, and booked this money-making matc-hup with the double world champion outside the Test window.
That meant Wales could not select 13 English- and French-based players for a flagship team which had already conceded 52 points each to Argentina and New Zealand this month.
A skeleton crew was left to be slaughtered.
"We could not play a game today and take the benefits from that. But we need caps," Wales coach Steve Tandy said. “We don't want to put the boys through this but we did.”
The Springboks had to release nine players from the Ireland win last weekend including the last two world players of the year Malcolm Marx and Pieter-Steph du Toit, but showed their ruthless streak by picking their first 7-1 bench of the year.
The bench alone had more caps (374) than the entire Wales team (306) and all eight reserves made an impressive Bomb Squad appearance in the 51st minute when the score was 49-0 and Wales was playing with 14 men.
Wales back-rower Taine Plumtree was doubly unfortunate; he forced off teammate Aaron Wainwright briefly after accidentally putting a fist in his eye then was yellow-carded.
Just when his time was up, Wainwright was sin-binned for a high tackle. In the 20 minutes they were off, South Africa bumped the score from 35-0 to 61-0.
The most inexperienced Wales forward pack since 2018 couldn't live with the Boks scrum, which was the launch pad for their first five tries to Gerhard Steenekamp, Ethan Hooker, Jasper Wiese, Morne van den Berg and Wilco Louw.
“My forward pack is next level,” Feinberg-Mngomezulu said.
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