“He Seemed To Be Alright?” – Vunipola Responds To Erasmus Calling Him Out Over Kolbe Incident

“He seemed to be alright?”

British and Irish Lions prop Mako Vunipola has responded to being called out on social media by Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus following an incident with Cheslin Kolbe on Saturday.

Vunipola lifted Kolbe off the ground in a bid to get the ball off him and prevent any ‘theatrics’ from the winger but Erasmus has called him out as being “reckless”

The former Munster head coach popped up on Twitter last night retweeting a very suspicious account that highlighted a number of incidents in the game that went against the reigning world champions.

The account has just two tweets, looking at the ‘A’ game and the first Test, and appears to use video editing software that’s very similar to what the Springboks use in their analysis (you’re fooling no one Rassie).

“Cheslin is obviously played in the air and clearly not direct into touch!!” Erasmus wrote on Twitter

“More importantly for youngsters watching this clip!!!! Please never move or touch an injured player on the ground, it’s reckless and dangerous!”

Vunipola was up for media today and brushed off the incident, stating Kolbe must have been alright because he played on straight away after the game.

“I just remember trying to get the ball,” Vunipola told us.

“I saw he had gone down and I guess it was just one of those things where it was the heat of the moment. You just react how you would normally.

“But he seemed to be alright? He played on the game, it wasn’t that reckless, was it?

And in terms of being called out by a head coach on social media, Vunipola agreed it’s probably a first for him but also apologised to Kolbe if he did indeed hurt him.

“On social media maybe but the same happened in 2013 (Australia), not a coach but someone, maybe Bob Dwyer, said something about my scrummaging then,” Vunipola said.

“But maybe yeah, probably the first time a coach has said something.

“If he [Kolbe] was really hurt then it is a bit reckless but I just felt that the collision wasn’t that bad. I saw that people were putting it up and mentioning it but I guess we were behind at the time and I just wanted to get a bit of tempo in the game. I wanted to get the ball off him.

“If I did hurt him, I do apologise. But as I mentioned, in the heat of the moment, you’re just playing and reacting as you would naturally.”

Here’s the Tweet that Erasmus put up from the “unknown” account too. Interesting to say the least…

Facebook
Twitter
Follow Me
Instagram