Boks won't appeal Wiese's ban, praise disciplinary process

The Springboks won’t appeal the four match ban for Jasper Wiese for his headbutt that led to a red card in the second test against Italy.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus confirmed as much as he praised the way the disciplinary process worked where he felt that Wiese was able to give a good account of his side of the story.

The ban means Wiese misses out on Saturday’s test against Georgia, the two home tests against the Wallabies and the first test against the All Blacks in Auckland.

Erasmus praised the process and the work that had gone on behind the scenes to make the disciplinary process feel a lot more fair for all sides of the equation.

“I must say, since there's protocols in place where you communicate with World Rugby and referees, and since we got Jaco Peyper involved, and the whole hearing this morning, I really thought it was top class,” Erasmus said.

“Jasper got his chance to be honest and what he thinks and the way the chairlady ran the whole thing was clear - just the way they listened to what Jasper said.

“Getting a four match ban I think is fair. You know there can be excuses and other opinions but we were really comfortable that since there are good protocols in place with everything from referee communication to laws to input on high-performance structures to the disciplinary committee.

“We had a really fair trial, it was easy to understand so we were happy with him missing games but we're really satisfied with how the whole process was handled.”

Erasmus added that while they will miss Wiese, his brother Cobus’ start in the same position this weekend was promising and that there was cover in the role.

“To be honest, Siya can play eight and Marco (van Staden) can play eight. Siya is more valuable for us at six, Marco is more valuable as a back up player for us. Marco was our internal man of the match. You have them there, and then JL du Preez, who went back to be with his wife and had a bit of a concussion issue - but he will be ready for us when we go back into camp in a week’s time,” he added.

“Jasper will be out for four games, and we lost Elrigh Louw. JL hasn’t been cleared yet and at the moment we only have Evan and Siya and Marco that can play there.

“We are going to try Cobus there, just to see if we have enough depth. The attributes he has is very similar to how Duane Vermeulen and Jasper played there. Evan (Roos) can play six, seven and eight and we know that. People mustn't think we didn’t learn much from him just because he only got 25 minutes.”