There are two ways to go when an incident unfolds with a couple of 20st South African props on a rugby field.
One is to fly the white flag and hope the individuals in question might be amenable to some form of hastily arranged peace talks.
Call that the appealing option or even the sensible call.
The other is to wrestle with the pair and even try to swing a punch or two at them.
Call that the Richard Hibbard option.
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Rewind to 2008 and Grand Slam champions Wales were on course for a 43-17 pummelling at the hands of the Springboks in Bloemfontein. There were only minutes left when Hibbard, who had come on as a replacement, found himself in a tangle with not one but two shaven-headed behemoths clad in myrtle green jerseys.
The footage is on YouTube, showing the then Ospreys player with the odds hopelessly stacked against him.
He had been attempting to clear out CJ van der Linde and Guthro Steenkamp, only to find they weren’t exactly pleased with the way he went about his business. Van der Linde pushed a forearm across Hibbard’s face and received a right hook in return, albeit the blow barely connected, merely scuffing the Springbok high around the back.
The action ended with van der Linde locking a left arm around the then 24-year-old Hibbard’s head with Steenkamp still on the scene as all three players crashed over the advertising boards before Gethin Jenkins arrived in more conventional peacemaking mode.
Hibbard and van der Linde were yellow carded for their efforts. You can read more about Hibbard announcing his retirement here.
A TV camera panned to the sidelines where the pair were sitting, with the young Welsh hooker sitting on a chair and quietly seething, looking for all the world as if he’d just been in a scrap that had been broken up in school.
“He didn’t take a backward step, did he?” says the TV commentator,
Indeed not.
That was never Hibbard’s style.
He later recalled of the incident: “Two big lumps had a go at me and took me to the sideline. They grabbed me, took me to the side and gave me a good talking to.
“I tried to answer back but it was hard to get a word in edgeways.”
There didn’t appear to be much talking going on and Hibbard’s next concern was how Warren Gatland would react. Would he discipline him and leave him out of the squad completely for the second Test the following week?
Er, no.
Gatland went the other way, promoting the former Aberavon Fighting Irish rugby league player into Wales’ starting line-up. The New Zealander had spotted potential in Hibbard and respected his fearlessness, the heart he brought to every game and also his physicality.
“Gats was really good,” said Hibbard. “He knew which buttons to press with different players.”
Not every coach would have reacted that way.
This weekend in Pretoria, there’s little chance of punches, even ones that don’t properly connect, and even less chance of three players crashing over the advertising boards in a cartoonish fury. Nowadays, with cameras all around and players lectured more and more on the perils of incurring the wrath of the referee, the TMO and even the citing commissioner, such incidents have become increasingly scarce.
Wayne Pivac will still encourage Wales to be physical.
But within limits, perhaps.
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