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This bloke is amazing!
What a tool
Boks continue to win in spite of their coach
Marc Hinton, stuff.co.nz | July 1, 2009 - 11:09AM
Good old Peter de Villiers strikes again. Now here's a man who makes Mathieu Bastareaud seem positively sane, the Springboks coach outdoing even his own high standards of foot-in-mouth syndrome with his latest outburst.
We really shouldn't be surprised by anything we hear from PDV these days. But still we are.
A controversial appointment when he succeeded the successful Jake White, the pint-sized coach has made an art-form out of his bizzare press conference soliloquies. It's not clear what colour the sky is in the world the Boks coach inhabits, but it appears to be a different shade to our own.
De Villiers struck again in the aftermath of the Boks' series-clinching victory over the British and Irish Lions in Pretoria at the weekend - a meritorious 28-25 win that was marred by the yellow card and subsequent eight-week suspension handed down to flanker Schalk Burger.
The coach's comments made in the wake of the Burger ban - that will remove him from the equation for the first three Tir Nations matches - almost defy belief. They also caused his own national union to issue a hasty clarifying statement that could only be viewed as attempted damage control.
Just how long SA Rugby can continue to let this man run amok with his views remains to be seen, but in the meantime we in the media, and you in the public arena, should at least enjoy it. For no one quite tells it like de Villiers.
Here's a selection of the pearlers he offered on the Burger "gouging", his flanker's subsequent suspension and the British media's indignation at the tone of his comments:
- "Do we really respect the game? If not, why don't we all go to the nearest ballet shop and get some nice tutus, get a great dancing show going on, no eye-gouging, no tackling, no nothing and then we will all enjoy it.
- "In this game there will be collisions and the guy who wins the collision, who goes in hardest, that's the guy we will select. I've looked at the TV footage, I'm still convinced there was nothing [Burger] did on purpose. He's an honourable man."
- "I'm honoured to be part of this lovely game and I'm part of the system. I don't appoint disciplinary officers, I don't always agree with them, but if you don't want to be part of this system, create your own world."
- "We should be congratulated for winning our first series against the Lions in 29 years. The country can rejoice and be positive. They and their supporters should take it on the chin ... nobody from the Lions has said well done to us yet: perhaps they will after the third test."
- "Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk won the Nobel Peace prize: whatever else they did in their lives, no one could take that away from them."
- "If I am the weakest link, then we are bloody strong. I'm a God-given talent, I'm the best thing I can be, so what you [the media] think doesn't bother me. I know what I am and don't care a damn."
- "We have brilliant players in this country. We do not prepare them to do things you would see in the bush veld. If you want to eye-gouge a Lion, that is where you go."
- "I know Schalk Burger very well. He is a very physical rugby player and he likes to show who is the boss on a rugby field. I do not think he did it."
- "Rugby is a contact sport - so is dancing. If you are clued up on this game, you will have seen ... there were so many incidents and he could have carded one of them for maliciously charging into a guy. We could have brought that to the attention of the citing commissioner but we did not because this game is a game to us and sometimes you get away with things."
And, finally, on comments in the local media that he was the weak link in the Boks chain and a "dimwit" and "bungler", de Villiers reached for his best stuff:
- "I am not disappointed in our media. Everyone in life has an opinion. I react to fact, not opinion. If I am the weakest link, then we are bloody strong.
- "I have a God-given talent... I do not give a damn what the media think. People say we were lucky to win last Saturday. I describe luck as someone trying to hit you and missing. A game lasts 80 minutes and if you are ahead on the scoreboard at the end, it is down to character more than luck.
- "I do not know how I am perceived and I do not care. When you close your eyes at night and know you have been honest with yourself and those around you, that is all you can ask for. I thank you for being interested in my job but I am not interested in yours."
You'll forgive me for letting PDV go on a bit, but some of this stuff is so good it deserves recording.
It also confirms the suspicion that the biggest obstacle in the way of South Africa adding the Tri Nations trophy to their Lions scalp and the World Cup crown that sits safely in their keeping is indeed their own coach.
Surely, the theory doing the rounds that the Boks continue to win in spite of their man in charge, not because of him, must have some grounds. His bizarre subbing in the second half of the first test, and now this.
Of course the one thing to bear in mind about this whole Burger affair is that once again it's being jumped all over by the UK and Irish media in the wake of yet another series defeat by their Lions - completing a clean-sweep by the Tri Nations over the so-called best of British.
Much as they did with Tana Umaga in 2005, the travelling media are obsessing on one incident in a match and rather disguising the bigger point which was that their Lions weren't good enough once again.
On that score, de Villiers most definitely has the last word.
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