Erudite Jake shrugs off Marcell Coetzee's Bulls ban: 'They've got to back the referee'

It's unlikely a grizzled rugby man like Jake White will ever sound defeatist, but the Bulls director of rugby is distinctly philosophical (in his own unique manner) about being without seasoned skipper Marcell Coetzee for the next few weeks.

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On Thursday night, the 32-year-old flanker was handed a three-week suspension for a head-high shoulder charge on SA-born Scottish international Pierre Schoeman in last week's 23-31 defeat to Edinburgh, a sanction that was already mitigated by his "exemplary" disciplinary record previously.

However, there had been a view that Coetzee might have been in a position to argue that his on-field punishment was harsh enough, especially in light of Edinburgh loose forward Billy Mata also being shown a yellow card for what many believed was a similarly high hit on Stedman Gans.

Yet, after making a point of attending his main leader's hearing, White came to the realisation that the intricacies of refereeing protocols nowadays would extinguish any of those hopes.

"I went to the hearing to see how it all pans out. I wasn't involved, obviously, but I wanted to experience it," the former World Cup-winning Bok coach said on Friday, ahead of his charges' URC meeting with Connacht at Loftus on Saturday. 

"It would be helluva difficult for the disciplinary committee to find Marcell innocent if the referee made that call in conjunction with the TMO, because the unavoidable message would then be: 'Don't back the referee.' 

"To be fair, they've got to back the referee first, surely. Having sat in the hearing, it's highly unlikely that they'd ever go against what the on-field referee decided."

Such a sentiment is merely handed more credence following reports out of the UK that