RUGBY/TRI NATIONS: A defiant Pieter van Zyl, the spectator who attacked Irish referee Dave McHugh during last weekend's Test match between South Africa and New Zealand, provides an additional element of frisson to the encounter tomorrow between South Africa and Australia.

A businessman from Potchefstroom, in one of South Africa's premier maize-growing regions, Van Zyl has sworn to attend the match, despite a firm statement by the chief executive of the South African Rugby Football Union, Rian Oberholzer, banning him for life from attending a match held under the auspices of the union.

But Van Zyl insists he has tickets for the match - "in the same box as Rian Oberholzer" - and that his attorney will "fight to the utmost" any attempt to prohibit him from attending matches.

Van Zyl has been buoyed by a poll conducted by the Citizen, the newspaper that published an editorial that, while stopping short of endorsing his assault of McHugh, laid a major share of responsibility for his behaviour on South Africa's rugby administrators.

The editorial reckons that Van Zyl would not have felt compelled to attack McHugh if Oberholzer and his lieutenants had been more vigorous in criticising poor refereeing.

The Citizen, which was secretly founded with taxpayers' money in the 1970s by the apartheid government, has followed up its editorial with a phone-in poll. It shows overwhelming support for Van Zyl, with nearly 70 per cent of its readers supporting him.

The poll has angered Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour, who labelled Van Zyl a "thug" and condemned those who had tried to make "a hero" of him. "There is nothing patriotic about assaulting a referee," he said. "We live in a civilised society, for God's sake."

Even without the attack on McHugh, pre-match atmosphere would have been tense. A big punch-up in the most recent meeting between South Africa and Australia - during the "Battle of Brisbane" last month in the first leg of the Tri-Nations contest - has given a sharp edge to the already intense rivalry between the countries.

One of the South Africans injured in the match was captain Corne Krige (he had to leave the field with blood pouring from an eye). His assailant, Ben Tune, escaped detection and is in South Africa for the return match. Krige, a man who plays hard but clean rugby, says: "There will be a few words (from me). But I'll keep them for the match".

The New Zealand coach, John Mitchell, has raised the tension (almost certainly deliberately) by remarking before his departure from South Africa, "The Australians don't respect the Springboks".

South Africa, desperate for a win, have retained the same team as the one that lost to New Zealand.