Peter de Villiers has expressed his sadness over Tendai “The Beast” Mtawarira’s remarks concerning his reign as Springboks coach. Mutawarira had suggested that de Villiers was not good enough and only succeeded as the coach because of the players’ brilliance.
An extract from Mtawarira’s book ‘Beast’ to be launched on July 1 which has caused the stir reads:
He was a fantastic coach of the Junior Springboks, but I think at the high level, he was probably lucky that a very good group of players was handed over to him.
His methods and approach didn’t really work with the Springboks, and as players, we had to be careful what we said to the media.
The sad de Villiers said that he did not expect the Beast to speak ill things about him after he had worked hard to have Mtawarira, who hailed from Zimbabwe, selected for the Bok side. He said:
If you look at how I fought to actually get him citizenship in South Africa … It’s sad to listen and see this kind of stuff.
He was … Very quiet, you couldn’t use him as part of your senior group because he had that mentality of ‘submissiveness’, if you can call it that, coming from Zimbabwe. They always… everybody else is better than them.
He also denied the suggestion that he had inherited Jake White’s 2007 World Cup-winning Bok squad when he took over in 2008. He says it is actually Jake White who took eighty percent of the Under-19 or Under-21 teams he had coached.
More: IOL.CO.ZA