Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town – If relevant people in the Springbok camp have enough balls to insist on it, Eden Park must represent the drawing of a line on foul play offences by Bakkies Botha.

It will be clear now to all but the bruising lock’s most head-in-the-sand or daftly macho disciples that his serial sin-binning has become a liability … not just to the national cause, but to his domestic franchise the Bulls as well.

Crass disciplinary lapses by Botha are so “serial”, in fact, that some wags might be inclined to measure them in a breakfast-bowl shower of Coco Pops.

The Currie Cup, Super 14, Test matches … the No 4 joked a year or so back that he was so familiar with the various citing commissioners that he could spot them in a crowd or virtually be on first-name terms with them.

Only it has ceased to become a laughing matter.

Saturday’s latest flashpoint(s) again left 14 remaining, more honourable men vulnerable and over-worked … a particularly tall order when your team is so noticeably under the cosh anyway.

Ironically, there is a good case for saying that his yellow-carding by Alan Lewis, in the 13th minute of a near-disastrous Vodacom Tri-Nations opening defeat to the focussed and ravenous All Blacks, was rough justice.

He was pinned for a professional foul on defence near the Bok try-line, with captain John Smit protesting animatedly that it was a first offence of that nature and a warning would surely have sufficed.

But referees, rightly or wrongly, also have devilish ways and means of atoning for earlier blemishes -- like the Irishman not initially spotting Botha’s all-too-unsubtle headbutt on New Zealand scrumhalf Jimmy Cowan pretty soon after the kick-off.

The No 9 indulging in some jersey-tugging in open play seconds earlier may amount to a very small level of mitigation for Botha, but there was simply no excusing his blatant head-charge into the back of Cowan’s skull after tackling him.

It was swiftly shown on the big screen, to a deafening chorus of home-town boos, and Lewis and his fellow match officials would hardly have missed the replay, even if out of the corner of an eye.

Frankly, it will be a miracle if Botha sees action again on the two-game remainder of the away leg for the defending champions, and he may even be “struggling”, as they say – given a mounting catalogue of prior offences -- to grace this Tri-Nations on South African turf either.

Botha has some wonderful attributes when his red mist is kept at bay, but he is not so special that South Africa can bank on his leaving combat for 10 minutes and expect not to suffer against leading-light foes.

It happened here, with the Boks 3-0 to the good when he got his marching orders, and 10 points were surrendered in his absence – a critical turnaround which the visitors never looked like rectifying.

They talk about Botha’s vital shoving presence behind his tighthead prop, but when he returned to the fray cold off the offender’s bench, the Bok scrum was immediately pulverised anyway and duly penalised. Bam … another three points to Dan Carter.

“(In)discipline costs you Test matches,” Smit confessed acidly in the immediate on-field interview after the thumping defeat, without mentioning -- or needing to -- Botha’s blemish.

Not only is the controversial lock getting yellow cards way too often – something Schalk Burger used to, but has largely rectified – but he is tending to get them very early in matches, at a time when establishing a bridgehead is a critical factor.

I suspect Danie Rossouw, a similarly tough but rather tighter cannon, is about to get a succession of starts alongside Victor Matfield, something hardly undeserved anyway.

But whatever punishment is meted out in this instance to Bakkies Botha, someone needs to say to him in no uncertain terms: “If you want to be with us for the World Cup, enough is enough.”