Bulls’ Grobbelaar’s red card downgraded to yellow — reports

Bulls hooker Johan Grobbelaar is free to play this weekend after the red card he received in last week’s URC match against Scarlets was over-turned, according to various reports.

The Bok hooker was shown his marching orders in the second half of the match in Llanelli after supposedly making a dangerous high tackle. The Bulls lost the match, their first defeat of the campaign.

But according to reports in South Africa, including from rugby365.com, the red card, for the tackle on Scarlets forward Marnus van der Merwe, was downgraded to a yellow card by URC officials after a review.

The red card shown to Grobbelaar on the weekend was the second one handed out to a player from Jake White’s team in as many weekends.

Second red card

In the Bulls’ first match on their URC tour, against Ospreys the week before, centre David Kriel was also shown a red card for a fend-off and it was then also overturned, following a review.

URC officials are expected to make the formal announcement of the change in card colour on Tuesday.

Bulls boss Jake White has expressed his frustration with some officiating, saying at the weekend, according to rugby365.com: “The bottom line is that I don’t think that was a red card. I think there were circumstances, which I am not going to share with you [media].

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“If it’s malicious, off the ball and it’s genuinely a red card, then we must never take that away from rugby. There is no place in rugby for that.

“The red card was put there for that exact reason because it’s dirty and malicious and premeditated.
“The red card wasn’t put in place for rugby incidents to take place.

“If we say it’s a rugby incident, then it becomes very different to the outcome.

“If you start by asking if it was foul play, which is the way that it’s done then you are going to get a different outcome.”

The Bulls are next up against Benetton from Italy as the look to bounce back from the defeat to Scarlets.