/ 20 October 2003

‘He put a hand in my face, so I gave him a slap’

So Lawrence Dallaglio’s fracas with Thinus Delport did upset the Boks.

On Saturday night, after England’s highly-fortunate 26-9 win over South Africa, coach Rudi Straueli dismissed Big Lol’s less-than-full-blooded blow as ”something we should leave to the commissioners and the citing committee.”

He then went on to talk about how well behaved his side had been: ”We as South Africans chose to play a different brand of rugby.”

But the citing committee have so far failed to act over Dallaglio’s punch, which left South African wing Delport needing stitches around his left eye.

Television footage showed the blow quite clearly but Dallaglio apparently felt it was a tit-fot-tat situation.

He said: ”Delport put a hand in my face, so I gave him a slap.”

Yesterday Straeuli said: ”We’ve lost a player who’s not playing against Georgia this week. He has lacerations above his eye and he’s not too happy about that.

”We’ve gone through all the right channels and now we want to seek redress. The final decision lies with the citing commissioner.

”We would be disappointed if nothing happens.”