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Watch - Video purporting to reveal Bongi Mbonambi and Tom Curry incident emerges
By Ian Cameron
A video that appears to reveal the audio from the Bongi Mbonambi and Tom Curry incident during the Rugby World Cup semi-final between South Africa and England has emerged online.
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World Rugby is investigating an allegation made by Curry that he was racially abused by South Africa hooker Bongi Mbonambi in the first half of Saturday’s semi-final defeat.
Curry claimed to referee Ben O’Keeffe that he was called a “white c***” by Mbonambi and, after a complaint made by the Rugby Football Union, audio and video footage is being examined for evidence.
Now video of the incident is doing the rounds on X and a player can be heard shouting a phrase not dissimilar to what is being alleged.
Many Afrikaans Springboks supporters believe Mbonambi said ‘Wit kant’ or ‘wyd kant’ which loosely translates as ‘white side’ or ‘open side’ respectively, although other accounts suggest Mbonambi – who went to English-speaking private school St. Alban’s College – is not a speaker of the language.
Cape Saakie posted the video on X, which is being pored over by rugby fans eager to work out what exactly was said:
So this is seemingly where the incident takes place. Listen from around 8s onwards.
My advice would be to put earphones in and decide for yourself what you hear? pic.twitter.com/8Qo571qd4s
— Sharky (@CapeSaakie) October 23, 2023
Whether the audio on the clip is viewed as compelling evidence in either direction is very much anyone’s guess.
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World Rugby was on Tuesday evening unable to provide any update on its investigation into the allegation made against Mbonambi but intends on completing the process as quickly as possibly.
“I haven’t discussed that [with him]. But to be straightforward and honest with you, he is a calm guy,” said assistant coach Daan Human was asked about the scandal today. “He is well spoken and I don’t want to actually go into it because we have a World Cup final in six days’ time. Like I said I am more concentrated on the forwards.
“I can tell you one thing, we have three hookers [including Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden] in the group. Three guys who are capable of playing hooker so we are very comfortable having three hookers. If you want to go into a final, you must have two hookers.”
additional reporting PA
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The weather was dreadful but the playing surface was great so there is no real excuse for such another poor standard of play from both sides. Dragons just the better team. But, what a shocking decision by the TMO not to award the Fifita try. This pretty much sums up Welsh rugby with poor teams and poor officials. The WRU have a lot of work to do and it needs to be done quickly to avoid rugby being lost to our future generations.
Go to commentsNo chance of Borthwick selecting any young talent. He announced his selection policy from the outset with naming a poor OF as Captain, retaining an equally poor Youngs and Vunipola brothers when there were many better EQP in the Premiership. SB revival of Leicester was based on SA muscle and a terrific Welsh flanker he has generally ignored young English talent.
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