Former Lions wing Luke Fitzgerald says he’s glad Springbok legend Schalk Burger wasn’t red-carded for eye-gouging him at the start of the second Test at Loftus in 2009.
The flanker was yellow-carded for the ruck incident and later banned for eight weeks after being found guilty of “making contact with his opponent’s eye area”.
The Boks went on to win the brutal Test match 28-25 and take an unassailable 2-0 series lead.
“The eye gouge – it was kind of unusual,” Fitzgerald recalled while speaking to Genting Casino alongside fellow Lions legends. “Us wingers generally try to stay out rucks as much as possible, but I found myself somehow in a ruck next to Schalk Burger and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.
“It was mad – he gouged me, on his 50th Test cap as well! I found myself wrestling with him; which is never a good idea, but he decides to gouge me on top of it after making mincemeat out of me.
“It was a bad start to the Test, I had double-vision for pretty much the rest of the game really. He only got a yellow card for it, which was the big talking point of that tour, even though the linesman told the referee at the time ‘he’s gouged him’.
“He asked me and I said ‘he did gouge me, I don’t know what to say and don’t want to be a rat, but he did do that’.
“It was unfortunate and they were very lucky to get away with that one. The pressure of the crowd and the atmosphere at Loftus Versfeld, all of those things were probably contributing factors to it.
“In some ways, it was good that it didn’t ruin his big day, which would have been a disaster for a guy who’s an all-time great, to have cost them a Test match on his 50th cap.”
The tourists, meanwhile, were left wondering what could have been after a devastating defeat.
“From a Lions perspective, it wasn’t so great,” said Fitzgerald. “It was still an unbelievable Test match, we still had plenty of opportunities to win the game, close out the game.
“At half time, I’ll never forget the scenes in our dressing room – Adam Jones, his shoulder was out, so he was trying to get that put back in. He’s a big boy in fairness, so it’s hard to get that shoulder back in.
“You could hear people in agony at the side of the changing room and the rest of us were just picking ourselves together. There were guys who had been knocked out and stuff, so it was a brutal Test match.
“They were an unbelievable team and we almost brought it to a third Test, unfortunately not, but it was a brilliant occasion.”
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