'Racist' Dowd won't back down
Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:45
War of words: De Villiers and Dowd square up
Former All Black prop Craig Dowd has fired back against embattled Springbok coach Peter de Villiers in the escalating war of words between South Africa and New Zealand.
Tensions have been rising steadily this week, reflecting the pressure in the respective camps in the build-up to the second Tri-Nations Test between the All Blacks and the Springboks.
Now it seems that things are reaching boiling point after Dowd made yet another statement about De Villiers, after originally criticising the Bok coach's credentials.
Dowd fired the first round on Thursday, when he referred to De Villiers as a 'puppet' on a radio talk show.
Dowd's comments reverberated unfavourably in the corridors of power of South African Rugby, prompting SA Rugby chairman Mpumelelo Tshume to issue a statement on Thursday night, suggesting that Dowd should apologise for his comments.
"Mr Dowd's comments are not only deeply and personally offensive to Peter de Villiers and SARU but also comically ill-informed on the affairs of South African rugby," Tshume's statement read.
"We trust he will show rather better judgment in having the good grace to apologise to Peter de Villiers and to the South African rugby community for the profound offence and hurt he has caused."
De Villiers then also responded by saying that Dowd was "stupid to make a call like that."
"I don't know what's his agenda, if it is racism or not," said the Bok coach.
"In South Africa it's a big thing, racism. But in other countries like here and Australia, it's big too. Really big, you know.
"I don't know, you can ask him that."
But now Dowd has decided to add more fuel to the fire by stating that De Villiers' response was completely predictable, and that he expected the race card to be played.
"To be honest with you, I pretty much thought he would go down that line," Dowd told Yahoo!Xtra.
"That is the way they [South Africans] always go down. You always expect that to happen, that is just the way they always react.
"I am definitely not a racist."
Dowd continued his criticism of De Villiers, saying that the coach has lost his focus, and allowed himself to get embroiled in a peripheral issue.
"If he was a real good coach he would be concentrating on a Test match, that is more important isn't it," said Dowd.
"I don't think I have called the shots as they aren't. I still stick with what I say."
When de Villiers was appointed on a narrow majority vote in January, South African rugby president Oregan Hoskins acknowledged the desire to broaden the racial base of rugby had been a factor in the appointment.
"I want to be honest with South Africa and say the appointment did not take into account only rugby reasons," Hoskins told reporters.
"We took into account the issue of transformation in rugby very, very seriously when we made the appointment."
