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Cape Town - All Black flank Liam Messam has responded to the furore from South African rugby fans following the sending-off of Springbok hooker Bismarck du Plessis in their Rugby Championship Test in Auckland over the weekend.
VIDEO: Nick Mallett hammers ref Romain Poite!
VIDEO: Bismarck red card for elbow
VIDEO: Bismarck's tackle on Carter
VIDEO: Nonu's shoulder charge on Jean
French referee Romain Poite came under fire for a series of blunders in the All Blacks' controversial 29-15 victory in which Du Plessis was sent off for receiving two yellow cards.
Much to the ire of the Springboks' fans, Poite showed the hooker a yellow card in the 16th minute of the Test for a perfectly legal tackle on All Black flyhalf Dan Carter.
Poite then showed Du Plessis a second yellow - and a subsequent red card - for leading with an elbow which connected with the throat of Messam.
Pundits described the second incident on Messam as "debatable at best" but there is no doubt that a wrong call was made in the first instance. However, Du Plessis received his marching orders which effectively ended the match as a contest.
Messam though feels all the anger from South African rugby fans is a bit uncalled for.
He tweeted the following after the match on Saturday, hinting that next time he will perhaps go lower when Du Plessis is approaching.
"Thanks for the hate coming out of SA, it is what it is, Lesson learnt tackle low."
His tweet - which was also displayed on SuperSport's Blitz news channel over the weekend - received a fair bit of criticism before the Kiwi responded by deleting the post from his account.
The Springboks and the All Blacks next meet at Ellis Park on October 5.
VIDEO: Nick Mallett hammers ref Romain Poite!
VIDEO: Bismarck red card for elbow
VIDEO: Bismarck's tackle on Carter
VIDEO: Nonu's shoulder charge on Jean
French referee Romain Poite came under fire for a series of blunders in the All Blacks' controversial 29-15 victory in which Du Plessis was sent off for receiving two yellow cards.
Much to the ire of the Springboks' fans, Poite showed the hooker a yellow card in the 16th minute of the Test for a perfectly legal tackle on All Black flyhalf Dan Carter.
Poite then showed Du Plessis a second yellow - and a subsequent red card - for leading with an elbow which connected with the throat of Messam.
Pundits described the second incident on Messam as "debatable at best" but there is no doubt that a wrong call was made in the first instance. However, Du Plessis received his marching orders which effectively ended the match as a contest.
Messam though feels all the anger from South African rugby fans is a bit uncalled for.
He tweeted the following after the match on Saturday, hinting that next time he will perhaps go lower when Du Plessis is approaching.
"Thanks for the hate coming out of SA, it is what it is, Lesson learnt tackle low."
His tweet - which was also displayed on SuperSport's Blitz news channel over the weekend - received a fair bit of criticism before the Kiwi responded by deleting the post from his account.
The Springboks and the All Blacks next meet at Ellis Park on October 5.
