Johan Grobbelaar handed Springboks lifeline before squad announcement

For the second successive week in the United Rugby Championship, the Bulls had a red card rescinded.

rugby365 confirmed that the red card issued against replacement hooker Johan Grobbelaar – for a high tackle on Scarlets prop Marnus van der Merwe in the 67th minute of the 22-23 loss in Llanelli last Friday – has been ‘downgraded’ to a yellow card.

The formal announcement from the URC will follow later, but Grobbelaar is free to play.

And he will most likely be named in the Springbok year-end tour squad, to be announced on Tuesday.

The previous weekend, in a 29-19 win against the Ospreys, David Kriel received a red card for a hand-off, but it was rescinded.

Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White, in the wake of the Grobbelaar card, made it clear he was ready to defend his player.

“The bottom line is that I don’t think that was a red card,” White told reporters after Friday’s defeat.

“I think there were circumstances, which I am not going to share with you [media].

“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.”

White added: “I will look at that and I will fight for the player.”