The tendency you describe is the visible tip of a deeper moral iceberg (”get away with what you can”) and, as you say, a terrible lesson to teach young people.

In this case the powers that be got it right. However they need to get it right all the time and be even handed. During the 2nd lions test SA flanker Burger was sent off (rightly so ) and received a six week ban (a bit weak) for eye gouging, a week and a half ago Australian fly-half Matt Gitaux was sin-binned for 10 minutes with no further action deemed necessary for a blatant and very dangerous off the ball tackle, jumping onto the head of the SA scrum half who was preparing to catch the ball and so was unaware of the incoming Gitaux. This smacks of the tackle on BOD in the 1st lions test 2005 – dangerous & deliberate attempt at removing a potentially match winning player from the game. Fortunatly Fourie du Preez was Ok but he was definitly hurt. If a player is sent off he has to appear in front of a diciplinary panel, the same thing happens if he is cited – surely this should be extended to yellow cards – especially if they’re being handed out for such offenses which in my playing days would have been a sending off.