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'I bailed out of the tackle...': Sale's Rob du Preez cops ban for last weekend's red card

(Photo by Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images)

Sale out-half Rob du Preez has been given a three-match ban following his red-carded tip tackle during last Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership win over Gloucester. He was sent off by referee Adam Leal in the 23rd minute of the game and appeared before an online disciplinary panel on Tuesday night.      

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A statement confirming the ban read: “Du Preez accepted the charge and was given a three-week suspension by the independent disciplinary panel comprising Ian Unsworth (chair) with Mitch Read and Tony Wheat. He is free to play again on May 18.”

Du Preez will now miss the April 24 game at Worcester, the May 7 home tie with Leicester and the trip to Bath on the weekend of May 15. 

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The referee’s report, which was included in the judgment published by the RFU, read: “Gloucester 1 (Val Rapava Ruskin) won the ball in a turnover at a ruck before running into contact with Sale 10 (du Preez). Sale 10 lifted Gloucester 1 in a dominant tackle and took him through the horizontal and the tackled player landed dangerously on the side of his head. 

“I immediately awarded a penalty to Gloucester and stopped play to consult with the TMO to confirm landing point. After a short consultation, we confirmed the foul play and landing point (the side of his head) and issued a red card to Sale 10. We had the opportunity to observe the match footage which confirmed the accuracy of that description.”

In a letter to the panel, du Preez wrote: “I’d like to take responsibility for my tackle and fully accept the charge against me. I would also like to put in writing my sincerest apologies to Val and am truly thankful he did not suffer any injury as a result of my actions.

“The incident itself was entirely unintentional and I certainly did not intend to cause any harm to Val. I saw Val had stolen the ball at the breakdown and had a significant run-up before I could get in a position to tackle him. I was also aware of his size and knew I would need to tackle him as hard as I could in order to attempt to bring him down. As I engaged in the tackle I was genuinely surprised at how easily I was able to put force through him.

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“Unfortunately as I lifted his legs in the tackle I wasn’t able to control the balance of the tackle and his legs went above the horizontal. I recognised I wouldn’t be able to bring him down safely so I bailed out of the tackle in an attempt to not drive him into the ground. I immediately apologised to Val following the incident and sought him out again after being shown the red on the pitch to issue a further apology.”

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G
GrahamVF 20 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

"has SA actually EVER helped to develop another union to maturity like NZ has with Japan," yes - Argentina. You obviously don't know the history of Argentinian rugby. SA were touring there on long development tours in the 1950's

We continued the Junior Bok tours to the Argentine through to the early 70's

My coach at Grey High was Giepie Wentzel who toured Argentine as a fly half. He told me about how every Argentinian rugby club has pictures of Van Heerden and Danie Craven on prominent display. Yes we have developed a nation far more than NZ has done for Japan. And BTW Sa players were playing and coaching in Japan long before the Kiwis arrived. Fourie du Preez and many others were playing there 15 years ago.


"Isaac Van Heerden's reputation as an innovative coach had spread to Argentina, and he was invited to Buenos Aires to help the Pumas prepare for their first visit to South Africa in 1965.[1][2] Despite Argentina faring badly in this tour,[2] it was the start of a long and happy relationship between Van Heerden and the Pumas. Izak van Heerden took leave from his teaching post in Durban, relocated to Argentina, learnt fluent Spanish, and would revolutionise Argentine play in the late 1960s, laying the way open for great players such as Hugo Porta.[1][2] Van Heerden virtually invented the "tight loose" form of play, an area in which the Argentines would come to excel, and which would become a hallmark of their playing style. The Pumas repaid the initial debt, by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park, and emerged as one of the better modern rugby nations, thanks largely to the talents of this Durban schoolmaster.[1]"


After the promise made by Junior Springbok manager JF Louw at the end of a 12-game tour to Argentina in 1959 – ‘I will do everything to ensure we invite you to tour our country’ – there were concerns about the strength of Argentinian rugby. South African Rugby Board president Danie Craven sent coach Izak van Heerden to help the Pumas prepare and they repaid the favour by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park.

149 Go to comments
J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

149 Go to comments
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