It is unlikely sanctions will be taken against Sharks scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse or the club’s staff following the scenes at the end of Munster’s defeat in Durban last weekend in the United Rugby Championship quarter-final.
The match, which finished in a draw after extra-time, went to a penalty shoot-out and before outhalf Jack Crowley could take his second kick at goal, Hendrikse went down with apparent cramp preventing Crowley from going through his routine and taking the shot.
Hendrikse then winked at Crowley as he lay on the ground receiving treatment.
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Crowley subsequently became embroiled in an angry dispute with members of the Sharks backroom team on the pitch before the South African side won the kicking contest 6-4 and moved into the URC semi-final.
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“It hasn’t [been brought up], to my knowledge, so no I haven’t seen that. In terms of what happened, it hasn’t been flagged on a disciplinary level,” said URC chief executive Martin Anayi during an end-of-season round table interview on Wednesday.
Far from taking a jaundiced view of the incident, Anayi pointed to what he saw as the positive aspects as the matter, which drew wide interest on social media.
“From it being something that has spiked viewership, quite honestly, it has. That game is the most viewed highlights on YouTube we’ve ever had, two days ago.
“It shows the level of intrigue and interest in the game, spiked by, I guess, gamesmanship. There’s a thin line between that being a positive and a negative. It’s a difficult one. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts over the last couple of days talking about it.”
It was probably not the answer a lot of Munster fans would have liked to have hear.
“Ultimately, we want characters in the sport and when you have characters and when you encourage people to show their character, that can be positive and negative. There are heroes and villains in all stories, great sporting stories. I think that is kind of what is emerging here, isn’t it,” said Anayi.
“Whether that turns to disciplinary, I just haven’t seen anything like that. But, needless to say, it certainly spiked an interest in the league. And in that fixture, and in the rivalry between Ireland and South Africa, which is really bubbling along, I guess it’s another chapter in that story.”
On the presence of members of the Sharks backroom team on the pitch during the shoot-out, Anayi said there are stringent rules around which people are allowed on the field of play.
“There is pretty tight regulation about staff, so I think if there was somebody on the pitch who shouldn’t have been that will get flagged,” he said.
Anayi also doubled down on penalty shoot-outs as a reasonable format in deciding knockout fixtures that remain equal after extra-time.
“We had the example of that with Munster/Toulouse (in the Champions Cup) a while back. We also had it a long time ago with Cardiff in the European Cup. I think we’ve put a bit more structure on it since then. At least I knew what was going to happen, which I didn’t necessarily know when it happened in Cardiff that time,” said Anayi of the first penalty shoot-out in 2009 between Cardiff and Leicester Tigers in the Champions Cup semi-final.
“I think we had a bit more of a sensible structure, where you have three designated kickers taking two kicks each. There really is very little other way to get the winner in the time frame, which is obviously what we need for the following week. We felt like that was the best possible outcome once you’d gone through the other metrics. It showed drama, intrigue and got a lot of people talking. Which is not a bad thing.”
In a wide-ranging conversation that covered growing URC audiences, Welsh and South African rugby’s role in the competition, the proposed Club World Cup and 20-minute red cards, Anayi also addressed the possibility of Croke Park being the venue if Leinster beat Glasgow Warriors at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday and get to the final of this year’s championship. Leinster have home advantage as they finished top seeds after the competition’s league phase.
“We’ve got a really good relationship with the GAA and the leadership there,” said Anayi. “Obviously, working very closely with Leinster. There’s a lot of tickets to sell in a very short period of time, that one week.
“We’re being realistic about what can happen in one week, but it’s exciting. We’d love to have that as a spectacle, which is one of the brilliant things that is happening in Ireland, that we’re seeing rugby being played in GAA stadiums very successfully.”
