Springboks lock Lood de Jager will serve a four-match ban. This follows his red card against France, and Rassie Erasmus has responded.
This blow effectively ends 32-year-old De Jager’s season.
Coach Rassie Erasmus has shared his thoughts in a hilarious and unhinged tweet, but subsequently deleted it.
Rassie names his Lood de Jager ‘replacement’ for the Springboks
Rassie Erasmus loves to stir the pot on ‘X’. It feels a bit cringe calling it that, so let’s stick to Twitter. Deal with it. The Springbok coach hasn’t explicitly made his feelings known on Lood de Jager’s hefty suspension, but has made light of it by suggesting a creative replacement for the world-class lock forward. The tweet has since been inexplicably deleted, but we have receipts. The video attached to the original tweet sees Rassie picking up pint-sized President of SA Rugby, Mark Alexander.
“We not doing too great in the boardrooms currently, feels like the creativity is moving off the field and becoming more important inside the boardroom,” Erasmus wrote on X.
“Anyway, in this video, you can see Duane lengthening [SA Rugby president] Mr Alexander by 5cm as a possible replacement for Lood.”
Will a 5cm height extension be enough?
Suspension update as Lood de Jager’s Springboks season is over
Lood de Jager made shoulder-to-the-head contact with France fullback Thomas Ramos, and he has now learned his fate after subsequently appearing at a disciplinary hearing.
South Africa No 5 Lood de Jager appeared before an independent disciplinary committee this afternoon via video link, having received a red card for an act of foul play contrary to Law 9.16 in the match between France and South Africa on Saturday, 8 November 2025,” a statement read late on Tuesday.
“The independent disciplinary committee was chaired by Jennifer Donovan (Ireland), joined by former referees Val Toma (Romania) and Donal Courtney (Ireland).
“The disciplinary committee has upheld the red card issued to the player and by applying World Rugby’s sanctioning provisions, has determined that the mid-range entry point of six weeks/matches was appropriate.
“Mitigating factors were applied by the committee, reducing the six-week entry point by two weeks, thus reducing the final sanction to four weeks/matches.
“The suspension will cover the following matches:
- 15 November 2025: Italy vs South Africa, Autumn Nations Series
- 22 November 2025: Ireland vs South Africa, Autumn Nations Series
- 29 November 2025: Wales vs South Africa, Autumn Nations Series
- 14 December 2025: Wild Knights vs Toshiba Brave Lupus, Japan League One*
* The player has additionally been given permission to apply to take part in World Rugby’s coaching intervention programme to substitute the final match of their sanction. This is aimed at modifying specific techniques and technical issues that contributed to the foul play.“
Injury update from Tony Brown
Following an intense clash with France, the Springboks are gearing up for another tough battle against Italy. Fullback Damian Willemse is under no illusions about the difficulty of the task.
Assistant coach Tony Brown confirmed that there were no injury concerns going into Saturday’s match. However, rotation is key.
“We have a lot of sore bodies, so recovery has been massive for us, but we have no injury concerns,” said Brown. “Obviously, Lood (de Jager – who received a red card in the first half against France) has to go through a hearing, so we won’t find out if he’s available for selection until after that.
“We’ll hopefully know by Wednesday what the status is with him. Both Lood and the sore bodies were part of the delay in announcing our team.”