Sharks captain Stefan Terblanche pleaded guilty to a charge related to the misuse of the social media website Twitter which was deemed to be a breach of the SANZAR code of conduct.

The veteran utility back appeared before SANZAR judicial officer, Terry Willis and agreed that SANZAR had correctly ruled on the ineligibility of Sharks centre Riaan Swanepoel to participate in the Super Rugby play-off in June. He was fined AUD2000 after apologising.

Terblanche originally tweeted: "SANZAR again being very impartial. The Sharks not even allowed to take who we want on tour. Pathetic!!"

This was followed up by the tweet that SANZAR found offensive which also questioned the eligibility of Caleb Ralph for the Reds, it read: "Not allowed to take Swanepoel who has been part of squad all year and toured with us for 4 weeks. He didn't play 4 games. Caleb Ralph, Reds?"

Terblanche tweeted his apology to SANZAR before follwing that up with another lamenting the exchange rate between the Australian Dollar and the South African Rand.

"Apologies to Sanzar. I was wrong about ruling on Riaan Swanepoel. He was correctly ruled ineligible. I am sorry."

"I had to apologise to Sanzar and got fined $ 2000. That is Australian dollars,so roughly times 7.2 to get rand value. Expensive tweet!" he said.