{"id":21482,"date":"2025-10-23T20:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/jan-hendrik-wessels-bulls-and-south-africa-player-receives-nine-game-ban-for-genital-grab\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T20:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:00:16","slug":"jan-hendrik-wessels-bulls-and-south-africa-player-receives-nine-game-ban-for-genital-grab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/jan-hendrik-wessels-bulls-and-south-africa-player-receives-nine-game-ban-for-genital-grab\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan-Hendrik Wessels: Bulls and South Africa player receives nine-game ban for genital grab"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

South Africa front-rower Jan-Hendrik Wessels has received a nine-match suspension for grabbing Josh Murphy’s genitals in the Bulls’ United Rugby Championship win over Connacht. <\/b><\/p>\n

The incident occurred in the 18th minute of the Bulls’ 28-27 win in Galway<\/a> on Friday, with Connacht forward Murphy given a 20-minute red card after reacting angrily by striking Wessels on the head.<\/p>\n

After Murphy complained about Wessels to referee Mike Adamson, the incident was checked by television match official (TMO) Hollie Davidson, who found no conclusive video evidence.<\/p>\n

Wessels remained on the field until he was substituted in the second half. <\/p>\n

While the URC confirmed Murphy’s 20-minute red card has been rescinded by a disciplinary panel, Wessels was found to have breached law 9.27, which states: “A player must not do anything that is against the spirit of good sportsmanship. This includes grabbing, twisting or squeezing the genitals.”<\/p>\n

The panel were satisfied that the incident met the red card threshold and warranted a 12-week suspension, the shortest ban under World Rugby rules for such an offence.<\/p>\n

However, Wessels’ suspension was reduced by three weeks because of the player’s “good conduct prior to and at the hearing and good record”. <\/p>\n

Wessels and the Bulls have the right to appeal, but as it stands, the ban will rule the 24-year-old out of the Springboks’ autumn Tests against Japan, France, Italy and Ireland. <\/p>\n

He will also miss the Bulls’ URC games against Glasgow, the Lions and the Sharks and Investec Champions Cup fixtures with Bordeaux and Northampton. <\/p>\n

Wessels has won 10 caps for South Africa and was part of their Rugby Championship-winning squad over the summer. <\/p>\n

Murphy, meanwhile, is available to face Munster in Saturday’s inter-provincial derby after being cleared. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa front-rower Jan-Hendrik Wessels has received a nine-match suspension for grabbing Josh Murphy’s genitals in the Bulls’ United Rugby Championship win over Connacht. The incident occurred in the 18th minute of the Bulls’ 28-27 win in Galway on Friday, with Connacht forward Murphy given a 20-minute red card after reacting angrily by striking Wessels […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport-africa","category-world-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21484,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21482\/revisions\/21484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}