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Schalk Burger refuses to apologise for gouging
Sam Peters03.07.09
Schalk Burger has refused to apologise to Luke Fitzgerald for gouging the Lions winger during the Second Test.
The Springbok flanker was banned for eight weeks for "making contact with the eye area" of Fitzgerald in the latest incident of eye gouging to blight rugby in recent months.
The International Rugby Board this week announced they will clamp down on the trend while reminding their judicial officers they must come down hard on those found guilty.
But despite his ban, Burger claims he was not guilty of gouging and did not refer to Fitzgerald in a statement that is sure to infuriate the Lions.
Burger said: "Through my life and career I have always approached the game with the intention only of playing it hard and fair.
"I am not a rugby thug and will never intentionally engage in eye gouging or similar illegal actions."
The International Rugby Board are also understood to be bemused by their judicial officer Alan Hudson's failure to ban Burger for longer.
Bizarrely, one of the mitigating factors in reducing the ban from the recommended 12 weeks was that Hudson considers Burger to be "a fine rugby player".
Reader views (4)
MIke you are a fool if you think Burher didnt deserve thwe 8 week ban for gouging. It isnt the first time he has done it, and with sucha weak penalty , it wont be the last. 12 month ban should have been the minimum. The red card he merited would have easily won the Lions the 2nd teat
- Keith Price, Luton, England
No its not time to move one - its time for IRB to ensure penalty for contact with the eyes starts at 6 months min and hefty fine; gouging to get 1 to 2 year bans if first offence.
Otherwise which so much at stake in the big games and so much opportunity for gouging or eye contact it will continue and someone soon will receive significant eye damage.
- Jim, London
I couldn't care less about Rugby, a silly game without logic, however, I am appalled at Schalke Burgers attitude, but fear it sums up South Africans, especially the Africaans section.
Ignorant, boorish, thick, violent and without any integrity and with an accent that grates worse than anything London/Birmingham/Liverpool etc could conjure up.
never met one I would want to share an evening with.
- Anon, Purley
If you read the full transcript from the citing officer's statement you will see that Burger was actually cleared of 'eye gouging'. He was suspended for "Committing an act contary to good sportsmanship by making contact with the face in the eye area of Luke Fitzgerald". "I do not find ths to be an intential act on the part of Burger and I accept Burger's evidence that he did not intend to make contact with the eye area of the Lion's no 11". "In my view his actions were clearly reckless. That is he knew, or should have known, that there was a risk that his actions could result in an act of foul play, that is contact with the eye are of the Lion's no 11.
The sentance was therefore not lenient unless of course you still believe that Burger deliberately. I think that it is time everyone moved on.
- Mike Braudy, Folkestone
