Kiwi Hansen fires back at Boks
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:31
There seems to be no end to the verbal sparring between the All Black and Springbok team management, after Kiwi assistant coach Steve Hansen delivered another volley of stinging criticism over Bok coach Peter de Villiers.
The Springbok coach has been heavily criticised in the media over his comments regarding referees and New Zealand's scrumming methods in recent weeks.
Now Hansen has been the latest to add his five cents worth to the discussion, accusing De Villiers of trying to manipulate the officials ahead of Test matches.
"I don't think it is about us, it is trying to influence the referee," Hansen told Yahoo!Xtra.
"Personally I think it is probably a fairly poor way of trying to do it.
"It doesn't reflect that well on you as a person when you start [throwing] the word cheat around," he said.
The verbal mud-slinging, which started on South Africa's Tri-Nations tour to Australasia, seems to show no signs of abating since De Villiers was labelled a "puppet" by former All Blacks prop Craig Dowd.
That inflammatory comment reverberated all the way to SA Rugby's top management, who were offended enough to issue a media release asking for an apology from Dowd.
A shocked De Villiers responded by saying that he "wasn't sure" if the comments were racially motivated or not.
"Peter is pretty new to the job. He is just trying to make his way," Hansen continued.
"Again, we can't control what he says, so I don't worry too much about it really.
"You do get little bit frustrated when they continually want to call you cheats.
"It is fairly common fact, people try and find a reason why they [the opposition] win, so obviously you have to be cheating. Which is not the case, but anyway that is just how some people deal with it."
De Villiers and Bok skipper Victor Matfield have been in the news again this week after commenting that they were struggling to understand referee Matt Goddard's interpretation of the breakdowns during the Newlands Test against New Zealand.
South Africa struggled to retain their possession and lost countless turnovers to the All Blacks, prompting Matfield to repeatedly ask Goddard about the situation without ever getting an explanation from the referee.
That issue was taken one step further this week, when International Rugby Board (IRB) referees' boss Paddy O'Brien also launched an attack on the Boks earlier this week, saying that the Boks had not submitted mandatory post-match reports to the IRB with any grievances team management may have with match officials.
This was in turn denied by national teams manager Andy Marinos, who stated that all reports have been filed as required by the IRB.
Marinos reportedly also stated this week that the Tri-Nations schedule was not fair to South Africa, a valid point considering that the Boks spend up to three weeks away from home on their Tri-Nations away leg, while the Australians and the All Blacks will spend only one week, or two at the most, on their away leg to South Africa.
According to Yahoo!Xtra, Marinos called on future Tri-Nations to feature a bye in South Africa for touring teams, so that the All Blacks and Wallabies could also experience the mental and physical fatigue that comes with a three-week tour in enemy territory.
But Hansen had little sympathy for the situation, and took another dig at the Bok management.
"The draw has already come out, so everyone has had their say on it," Hansen said. "If it is a bye, then it is up to us what we do with the bye.
"Andy again, they have a Test this Saturday so they would be better off concentrating on that rather than worry about [other things].
"The draw hasn't been confirmed. It has been bandied about and everyone has had their say. He has obviously spoken about it publicly, we are just concentrating on usual channels."
