Jesse Kriel escapes citing after South Africa's win over Scotland

South Africa have been handed a relief ahead of their second World Cup fixture against Romania on Sunday with centre Jesse Kriel not cited following an incident in the recently concluded clash against Scotland.

Kriel had made a head to head contact with Scotland back row Jack Dempsey early in the game in Marseille last weekend but was not sanctioned by the on field officials.

With no clear evidence of a foul play, the citing commissioner did not cite the incident which was acknowledged by Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus.

“We are really comfortable; there hasn’t been a citing. I’m pretty sure there won’t be a citing. If it isn’t direct head contact – and it wasn’t, it was tackled on the ball and then he moved up after tackling on the ball. I’ve seen a few stills where people just after direct contact to the ball," said Erasmus.

“If you took it a millisecond or a second or two back, you’ll see that he clearly tackled on the ball. So we’re very happy with how it was refereed.

“I think Finn Russell’s call was much closer. Unfortunately, he got injured then, I think that deflected a little bit from the action that he did, but we were happy with the decision that was made.”