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De Villiers fires parting shots at SARU

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Former Springbok rugby coach, Peter de Villiers, has fired some heavy parting shots at the South African Rugby Union as he moves to Zimbabwe to take up the national coaching position there.

De Villiers says SA Rugby blacklisted him from coaching in South Africa since he left the Springboks in 2011.

He also claims that Boland rugby was offered R2 million from SA Rugby not to appoint him as a coach.

De Villiers says when he became the preferred candidate for the Zimbabwe position, somebody from Zimbabwe Rugby phoned him with news that shocked him.

“SA Rugby called us and said that you are blacklisted they can’t appoint you. Well I called somebody in SA Rugby that was president way back and asked him, but he didn’t know about it. But we’ve got laws in the country like being blacklisted and when you find out about it is sometimes is too late.”

The South African Rugby Union responded by saying the allegations are completely untrue and instead congratulated De Villiers on his appointment as Zimbabwe coach.

De Villiers went on to question the competence of the current SA Rugby management team.

“If your boss played second team for the Maties and we all know that second team is actually fifth team in the league and you’ve been a guy that has followed rugby for your whole life, just to be there with them is already great for you, know you will never earn a rugby jersey at any level because you’re playing fifth team, so let’s do the second best thing and get close to the team. Now if I don’t have that knowledge of the game what gives me the right to tell my workers, my coach, my players you’re doing wrong there you should do that.”

De Villiers feels he is not wanted in South African rugby, and says one of the first things he will do is to learn the Zimbabwean national anthem to repay them for the loyalty they showed. Click below for more on the story: 

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