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Rugby match turns into chaos

DURING the past weekend what was supposed to be a pleasant rugby game turned into a fiasco when rugby players from Eto- sha Secondary School and sup- porters attacked a referee after the team forfeited the game.

The incident happened at Tsumeb over the weekend when Windhoek High School (WHS) Under-19B and Etosha’s team played each other.

During the second half, all went well until 12 minutes into the game. The referee, Melvin Esau, awarded a penalty to Etosha’s No 6 player. The captain of the Etosha team, No 10, confronted the refer- ee and was awarded a yellow card.

Etosha player No 4 also entered the mix and exchanged words with the referee and was also awarded a yellow card. Upon receiving the yellow card, No 4 tried to get to
Esau, but his teammates stopped him.

Player No 8 from Etosha came in and also confronted the referee and was awarded a red card. The whole Etosha rugby team then preceded to walk off the field.

The referee then stopped the match as the whole team walking ofcallsforaforfeitontheirbehalf.

Afterwards witnesses recalled a large crowd seen walking towards where the WHS team was getting dressed as the referee was stand- ing there and chatting to WHS coaches. Allegedly leading the crowd was No 8 with an adult, which the witness assumed was his father.

Before anything could be said the adult started hitting the referee and the crowd joined in. Players No 8 and No 4 from Etosha al- legedly also kicked and hit the referee. The only thing the referee could do was to cover his face and to try and avoid the punches.
WHS staff tried to control the chaos by shielding the referee but it hardly worked as the crowd was big. Only when an unknown Tsumeb resident entered the brawl did the crowd disperse and leave.

The incident has been submit- ted to the Namibian Second- ary School Rugby body by the Namibian Rugby Referee Soci-
ety (NRRS). The chairman of the NRRS, Jacky Husselman, stated, “I can’t comment on the incident due to the ongoing investigation, but can just say that we as refer- ees have seen an increase of abuse of match officials by spectators, rugby coaches and players. Unfor- tunately, if a team loses someone needs to be blamed and the referee seems to be the easiest to be the guilty party. People always seem to forget the mistakes made by teams during the game, but one or two mistakes by the referee are always the cause of a team’s per- formance on the day.”

Neither Esau, the referee, or Johnny Coetzee, representative from Etosha, wanted to comment.