Last-chance Brown out to set the record straight in Springboks showdown
Greg Growden Chief Correspondent | August 27, 2009
WALLABIES back-rower Richard Brown, with the threat of suspension hanging over him, knows he has to tread warily during Saturday night's Test against the Springboks, but vows he will remain an enforcer.
Brown will front the SANZAR judiciary if he receives another yellow card during the Tri Nations tournament, after being sent to the sin bin in the Cape Town loss to the Springboks and the Bledisloe Cup defeat in Sydney last Saturday night.
If a player receives three yellow cards during the Tri Nations he has to appear before the judiciary, where he could be suspended for several weeks.
Brown was sin-binned for a professional foul at the breakdown at Newlands. He was sent off by referee Jonathan Kaplan against the All Blacks in Sydney for a dangerous tackle on prop Owen Franks.
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans gave a strong hint he was unimpressed that Brown had become a repeat offender when he said immediately after the loss: ''I don't think his teammates would have been very excited.''
Brown yesterday said he had learnt his lesson and would be more careful at Subiaco Oval.
''I have to learn something from this experience, otherwise I am pretty thick. I am now conscious about where I am on the field and not playing on the edge of the law,'' Brown said.
''I was pretty devastated when it happened on Saturday night because I knew I had compromised the team. When he [Kaplan] reached into his pocket, I knew what was coming. I didn't want to make a big scene about it, so I just took off. My intentions did not involve any malice, but I lifted him up, he sort of got pushed the other way and I didn't follow through with it because I knew it was going bad.
''I understand that if I do get another one, it is going to be bad news for me. I'm crossing my fingers that won't happen. This is new territory for me because I had never received a yellow card until these two Tests.''
Asked if Deans said anything to him after the game, Brown replied: ''He didn't do the cold shoulder act or anything. He just said that when I play, don't try and reinvent the wheel and just try to forget about it.''
Brown's passion hasn't dimmed though.
''You don't come up against any international team that has a weak back row these days,'' he said. ''Every one of them is red hot. If [Schalk] Burger comes back into their line-up, great, and we know it is going to take another huge group effort to keep them at bay. But I'm really looking forward to having another crack at them.''
Springboks coach Peter de Villiers defended his team's successful kick-heavy tactics when the team arrived in Perth last night.
''Entertainment is one of the boxes we have to tick off, but it doesn't mean it's the first one on our priority list,'' de Villiers said.
''We didn't invent this game and we didn't write the laws. The law changes have forced us to adapt and our adaption is spot on. We don't kick more. We kick more back. There was more kicking in the [Sydney Bledisloe Cup] match than there was in our Tests against them. So now we are determining how they should play, too.''
The Springboks have also opted for a different approach by not arriving at the Test venue until just three days before the game.
''We… found that when we have been five weeks away from home, we've never had any success and so we have tried to reduce the amount of time away … on this [Australasian] tour to two-and-a-half weeks,'' he said.
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