Rassie Erasmus was clearly annoyed that another Springboks lock was red-carded, with Franco Mostert sent off in the 32-14 win over Italy.
Last week, it was Lood de Jager whose actions were deemed always illegal and he was given his marching orders after 38 minutes against France.
That was in Siya Kolisi’s 100th Test for the Boks, and he was forced off at half-time, and this week that proved to be the case again, with the captain making way earlier in the second half.
Rassie’s response to another red card
Ben-Jason, playing his first Test of the year, was also sacrificed early on after Mostert was sent off and Ruan Nortje needed to run the lineout.
Speaking after the game, Erasmus couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“It is what it is. What I say here can’t make a difference,” he began.
“I’m just very grateful that we had Ben O’Keefe on the one AR side and the referee who is experienced, because obviously we’ve got the referee mic on and all the noise that was coming from there, it was difficult to follow the match. So we later just put off the speaker, and I’m not saying there’s any negative way it was just a very busy and a lot of the calls made from there.
“What I can say is that it is very sad that our captain, in his 100th game and in his next game, had to be sacrificed.”
While the 20-minute red card law has been trialled recently, in both cases the Springboks’ locks were deemed to always be illegal, and because of that judgment by the officials, nothing but a permanent red card could be issued after World Rugby aligned the trial with the head contact process.