Ken Borland

The fact that his previous two-year ban for doping has now been quadrupled to eight years for his next offence is something Chiliboy Ralepelle’s lawyers believe is grounds for an appeal, but the former Springbok hooker’s career is almost certainly over after the South African Institute for Drugs-Free Sport’s independent doping tribunal announced another guilty verdict on Wednesday.

The 33-year-old tested positive for the growth hormone Zeranol while with the Sharks in January 2019. It was his second doping offence after being banned for two years in September 2015 for use of an anabolic steroid, Drostanolone, while recovering from injury in France.

Ralepelle has actually tested positive on three occasions, with his initial brush with the law coming in 2010 when he and wing Bjorn Basson were found to have the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine in their systems after the Springboks had played Ireland in Dublin on an end-of-year tour. But they were only given a reprimand when a judicial hearing found that it was not their fault because it came from a tainted supplement provided by the South African Rugby Union.

So it seems Ralepelle’s legal team are set to argue that it is only his second doping offence.

“We have concluded that there are definitely grounds for appeal, but we are creatures of instruction and we will take those instructions from Ralepelle on how he wants to proceed. We are preparing an opinion for Ralepelle on whether, solely from a legal perspective, he should appeal.

“There is one example: Chiliboy was previously banned for two years and the WADA laws say that the second offence must be double the standard for the first offence. In that respect, from our legal view, from a two-year previous ban, it should have been a four-year ban at best and not an eight-year ban. But we are still considering the contents of the judgement,” legal representative Hendrik Hugo told ENCA on Wednesday.

A four-year ban for a second offence involving serious drugs would appear to be a light punishment, however, given that some first-time offenders, such as Welshman Owen Morgan in 2017, have been given four-year sentences.

Springbok wing Aphiwe Dyantyi is facing a four-year ban himself after testing positive for three different steroids last year. According to SAIDS, a virtual hearing to the 25-year-old’s case should be held in the next two months.

At the other end of the spectrum, former Swansea hooker Dean Colclough was banned for eight years in 2014 for possessing and distributing steroids.

Francois Steyn’s return to the Sharks captaincy and the flyhalf position for Saturday’s SuperRugby game against the Western Force is now in doubt after Sanzar decided to appeal the decision of their own judicial officer and put the 2007 World Cup winner back on trial for the tip-tackle for which he was red-carded last weekend against the Chiefs.

It is believed All Blacks lawyer Stephen Cottrell is behind Sanzar’s unprecedented decision to appeal against Advocate Jannie Lubbe’s ruling this week that exonerated Steyn, and a Sanzar Appeals Committee, chaired by Terry Willis and with advocates Nigel Hampton and Robert Stelzner as members, will hear the matter via a video conference on Friday morning South African time.

But this will seriously disrupt the Sharks’ preparations for the match against the Force, with their team due to be named on Thursday morning and the Vodacom Cup side off to Cape Town on Friday morning. The franchise has appealed against the timing of the hearing and are looking to get it moved to after the game, either on Sunday or Monday.

Although Lubbe’s decision to clear Steyn was considered to be a highly generous one, Sanzar’s appeal is nevertheless extraordinary as they have never turned on one of their own judicial officers before.

The move has once again reignited old feelings of bitterness that South African players are judged by different standards in the competition, particularly since Cottrell, a legal representative for Sanzar, was the lawyer who defended Brad Thorn when he notoriously up-ended Springbok captain and current CEO John Smit, dumping him on his back without the ball, during a Test against the All Blacks in Wellington in 2008.

Cottrell argued that because Smit did not have the ball, Thorn’s foul play could not be considered a dangerous tackle and he was only given a one-week ban.

It was a decision that outraged the Springboks, for whom current Sharks director of rugby Gary Gold was then an assistant coach.

The uncertainty over Steyn further complicates the issue of the Sharks captaincy in the absence of the rested Pat Lambie and the suspended Bismarck du Plessis.