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All Black lock clears up South African pitch invasion

Former All Blacks lock Chris Jack has shed light on an infamous pitch invasion in Durban 16 years after the fact.

Back in 2002 Springboks fan Pieter van Zyl charged onto the field and tackled Irish referee David McHugh – dislocating his shoulder – during a Test match in Durban.

All Blacks flanker Richie McCaw eventually brought down the pitch invader, and he left with a bloody nose.

Talking to Radio Sport about the incident, 67-Test All Black Jack admitted he and teammate Dave Hewitt may have caused McHugh’s injury.

“I just thought it was their second-five coming into talk to the referee or halfback about something. And then I popped my head up and there’s this big fat bugger on the referee. A bit of a shock,” Jack told Radio Sport. “We got a bit of a surprise and then we saw AJ Venter and Richie McCaw on top of someone. So myself and Dave Hewitt saw the referee under there and saw what was going on and we tried to pull the poor referee out and I think we may have dislocated his shoulder.”

“Which eventually won us the game because we got a new referee and refereed a bit different and we went onto win.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJBF0xV2XA

The game wasn’t decided until the final ten minutes, but the All Blacks ultimately came out winners 30-23 with English assistant referee Chris White taking over for McHugh.

Jack said that later encounters with McHugh were slightly awkward.

“We started pulling him out and he started squealing a little bit. Games after that I went to shake his hand and he wouldn’t give me the time of day but he was all over Richie, so he obviously held a wee grudge against me for pulling him out.”

Pitch invader van Zyl stopped play for ten minutes and after the match was subsequently banned from attending any matches under the control of the South African Rugby Union.

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J
JW 31 minutes ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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