SA Rugby responds to Cobus Reinach threat: ‘It’s appalling’

SA Rugby will take further the alleged death threat made towards Springbok scrumhalf Cobus Reinach, according to SA Rugby supremo Rian Oberholzer, in a story on Friday on Sport24.

News emerged on Thursday that Reinach, who plays scrumhalf for the Boks, was allegedly the target of a death threat, from an unknown source, according to a social media post made by SA Rugby director of rugby Rassie Erasmus.

According to Erasmus, when translated from French to English, the threat made towards Reinach reads: “Dirty son of a bitch I hope that when you return to Montpellier you get murdered by French people on the ground gang of thieves easy to win a title by cheating.”

See the post on X (Twitter) by Erasmus here:

Reinach, who has played for Montpellier in France since 2020, helped the Boks beat France 29-28 in a Rugby World Cup quarter-final last Sunday. The Boks now face England in the semi-finals this Saturday.

According to Sport24, Oberholzer, who is SA Rugby chief executive officer, said the rugby body would escalate the matter.

“We were made aware of it (the death threat) on Thursday afternoon and that is something we’re going to take up,” Oberholzer told News24 on Thursday evening.

“It is unfortunate that things like that are being said. There’s very little that we as SA Rugby can do about French fans saying players should be murdered.

“It’s appalling that it happens, but there is very little that we can physically do about that.”

The Boks and England clash at 9pm on Saturday in the second of the two semi-finals at the World Cup. New Zealand and Argentina are in action on Friday, at 9pm.