The huge ban South Africa rugby star faces for disgusting eye gouge

South Africa were near-perfect in their decimation of Wales, only for Eben Etzebeth to spoil things with a late moment of ill-discipline.

The experienced lock was part of a 73-0 victory in Cardiff, Wales’ heaviest-ever defeat on home soil.

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Such was the humiliation, that a scuffle naturally took place in the closing minutes, and Etzebeth then became the protagonist.

Images showed the 34-year-old seemingly placing his thumb in the eye of Wales flanker Alex Mann.

Match official Eric Gauzins and referee Luc Ramos reviewed the footage and dealt out a red card having deemed the act intentional.

Etzebeth missed the final few minutes of the match, but things could get much worse with punishments for eye gouging some of the most severe in rugby.

World Rugby’s sanctioning guidelines range from 12 weeks all the way up to a massive four years.

Commenting on the sending off, Springbok’s coach Rassie Erasmus said: “I don’t know what I can say that won’t be controversial.

“It didn’t look good and it was a justified red card. How it happened or why it happened—I don’t know if he was provoked—but it’s definitely not how we wanted to finish the game. The optics weren’t great.”

Captain Siya Kolisi added: “I’m sure he didn’t mean to do that on purpose and I don’t want that to be the highlight of the game.”

Etzebeth, who scored one of South Africa’s 11 tries, will likely be on the lower end of the punishment scale, giving his relatively clean track record.

He’s never had a career red card before, with his most notably transgression an attempted headbutt against Australia all the way back in 2012 when he was given a two-week ban.

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World Rugby’s sanction guidelines state different punishment categories for the offence of Low-end: 4 weeks, Mid-range: 8 weeks, Top-end: 12+ weeks.”

With Etzebeth’s punishment expected to be dealt out in the coming days, a number of factors will be taken into consideration alongside his track record.

The disciplinary committee will decide if the act meets criteria such as whether it was intentional, reckless, provoked, retaliation of self defence.

Still, the best case scenario for Etzebeth is four weeks, which is a problem for his club side The Sharks.

He would likely miss four December fixtures against Toulouse, Saracens, Bulls, and Lions, as well as their opening games of the new year against the Lions and Sale Sharks.

His reputation has also taken a knock too, with Springboks legend Bryan Habana not impressed. 

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He wrote on social media: “I’ve just seen the Springboks scoreline but more so the incident with Eben. 

“As great a player and person as he is, there’s no room for that in the game. Justified red card and should be facing a lengthy time on the sidelines.”