Yesterday, all eyes were on coach Rassie Erasmus, as he named the Springbok squad that will travel to Japan next month for the Rugby World Cup.
Eben Etzebeth would also have felt some extra eyes on him, though, following reports that he was involved in “an unsavoury incident” in Langebaan on Saturday night.
According to Sport24, there was talk on social media that Etzebeth had “assaulted and pointed a gun at a homeless man”. Whilst the 27-year-old lock has denied that he physically or racially abused anyone via a post on Facebook, a charge has been laid and the incident is being investigated.
It’s understood that Etzebeth arrived with a group of around 12 to 15 people on Saturday night, at a pub called ‘Die Watergat’.
The pub’s owner, Riaan Reeders, spoke with Sport24 about what happened next:
An incident inside the bar then took place at around midnight, which saw one man involved in a scuffle in the upstairs section of the bar with certain members of Etzebeth’s party.
That incident, Reeders says, has resulted in the man who was removed from the premises opening a police case against members of the group.
Reeders says that Etzebeth and his friends then left the pub at around 02:00 on Sunday morning and were then involved in another incident that took place in the streets.
“At around 02:00 Eben and his friends left, and then there was a group of people at the centre across the road from us,” Reeders told Sport24 on Monday morning.
“Something happened there … I’m not sure what happened with the fighting, or whatever, with the Etzebeths. I wasn’t there and I can’t tell you what happened.”
Here’s the account of the woman who made the claims, Yorayda Papier-Jansen, via her Facebook post:
The post also came with two images of an injured and bloodied man lying prone on the floor.
This is the footage that has been doing the rounds on social media, which is filmed outside the pub.
The quality is terrible, and there’s also plenty of choice language used, for those who are offended by that:
Not sure we can draw many conclusions from that.
Bar owner Reeders says that Etzebeth was accompanied by his girlfriend, his brother Ryen and his wife, his cousin Emile, and others he didn’t recognise.
Reeders says the incident that happened in his bar was resolved quickly, and that in his mind it had nothing to do with what happened in the street afterwards.
“It wasn’t a related incident. It was just a guy … it happened upstairs and we took him out,” he said.
“I don’t know if there was charges laid there from that group (the incident in the street). I suppose there will be, because the one man was hurt quite badly.”
Reeders said he had examined the CCTV footage from the incident inside his bar, and that Etzebeth had not been involved in the scuffle.
“Eben and his brother were not involved in that,” he said.
“I looked at the footage yesterday morning and they were sitting at the table with the women or whatever … they weren’t part of it.”
Back to yesterday’s Springbok squad announcement, and Erasmus making it clear that he backs one of his star players:
Rassie Erasmus says he is backing Eben Etzebeth. pic.twitter.com/4V80SA4Nwv
— SA Rugby magazine (@SARugbymag) August 26, 2019
Let’s just hope that the truth emerges, whatever that may be.
