Writing in The Times, David Walsh asks whether gouging is on the increase and speaks to former Ireland prop Reggie Corrigan about the time he, "felt two fingers reach into his eye socket ".
"“It was terrifying,” Corrigan says. “I had a contact lens ripped out of my eye and I genuinely thought I was going to lose sight in that eye when it happened. It is a really horrendous experience because you just feel the nails of two fingers going straight into your eye ball. You don’t believe it is actually happening and then it is over. It is literally a lunge, a grab, and a release. At that point you are blinded for a short period of time and I had no doubt whatsoever it was a deliberate act.
"“I had to go off, my cornea was scratched. There was the disciplinary hearing, the video showed the incident from about 10 different angles, you could see the hand going to the face but you couldn’t see the fingers plunge into the eye socket, which is the crucial bit. You had the referee’s report, the medical evidence, my evidence and the evidence of the other player. He got six weeks because the evidence wasn’t conclusive and I certainly felt, ‘Here was a guy getting away with it’.”"
RSS feed
