Remember when cowboys didn't cry?

That image has been around the world via print, television and the net a couple of million times and all South African sports fans are now tarred with the same brush.

As the man in charge of SA rugby, Rian Oberholzer apologised before the match had finished but nothing really effective has been done since to distance rugby and South Africans from the lunatic fringe.

A daily newspaper that is based in Joburg is busy constructing a conspiracy theory around the 'fact' that refs are all against the Boks. The stupid thing is that a great deal of South Africans actually believe it.

All it took was a penalty try for the All Blacks and a disallowed try for the Boks and enter the PR peoples worst enemy. There was another decision made later on by the replacement ref when he ruled a Bok knock forward to disallow a try by Marius Joubert that was actually done by an All Black leg.

Chatting to some ex players who for obvious reasons will remain anonymous, the general feeling focused on that incident as the turning point in the game that was there for the Boks to win.

High penalty count, I hear the conspiracy theorists whisper. Only 9 were awarded against the Boks on Saturday.

Looking at things from a distance is all well and good, the theorists shout, but it all happens in the heat of the moment. Well, it all happens like that for the ref as well.

South African football fans have a reputation for utter stupidity and now rugby has taken things to another level. Pity the spin doctor that has to try and work through this but that is presuming that SA rugby has one.

Clear-thinking and intelligent people in this country have to take up the baton and stand up and say that this is not us. A picture tells a very convincing story and we as South Africans cannot laugh ever again about Colombian footballers being shot because of own goals and Korean footballers being fired by Italian teams. That same mindset lurks here within our own country and the incident on Saturday was really only the next step up from throwing naartjies at the ref.

How embarrassing it must have been for our players on the field to be witnesses to this nutcase and of course it was also an All Black fist that caught up with his nose first.

All jokes aside, just remember this fool next time you're in Thailand or Cuba and the locals remind you of sports hooligans when they realise that you are from South Africa.