Ardie Savea slips up.
Well, he said so himself and made no excuses for the gesture toward a Melbourne Rebels player accepting that it was wrong.
But Chris Rattue believes it was a throat-cutting gesture and a threat to kill. My oh my, what a drama Queen Chris is. He has magnified what is sometimes part of the All Blacks haka as a threat to kill. I have heard other explanations of that before and never from the AB's point of view has it been intended to have such a meaning. Without any presumptions that the Rebels' half may have deliberately gotten under Savea's skin somehow Rattue has contrived it to be a real threat and not a reaction to perhaps being baited.
We won't see the halfback when the Union meets over this matter, and it is unlikely they'll consider that it was a threat to kill. First of all, Ardie is not that type of player and it would ultimately be unprecedented in Super Rugby in an incident where no punches were thrown and in fact remained as a contest of a bit of lip given and pushing - all carefully staying within the modern rules with a gesture that is not unprecedented during the pre-match challenges of the All Blacks.
It was silly and it was dumb, but there is little doubt it was provoked somehow and even if it wasn't it was attended by any violence nor did it show anything other than the frustration of one player successfully getting under the skin of another - which apparently doesn't attract any penalty.
No comments:
Post a Comment