Former Boks boss Peter de Villiers feels harshly treated by the South African Rugby Union
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Former South Africa coach Peter de Villiers reflects on the decision to hand Heyneke Meyer the Springboks' reins. Supersport's Brenden Nel reports.
“I feel sorry for Heyneke, because he is starting on the back foot. The franchises are already set for the new season and know the news that a new team will come into Super Rugby. The franchises will now play their players down the drain to survive, to make sure they aren’t in that bottom spot,” De Villiers said.
“It will be a very tough year and Heyneke was only appointed now. He couldn’t sit down and talk to the franchises before they did their planning in place. He couldn’t sit down and reveal his plans and discuss with them.”
"But De Villiers followed it up with a bizarre broadside at his former employers, saying that there was no exit strategy for him, his management or Bok captaincy duo of John Smit and Victor Matfield.
“Nobody spoke to me about it since I came back from the World Cup. Nobody spoke to me. Perhaps I shouldn’t speak about it, because if I speak about it, people think I am lobbying for a job. I am not criticising, this is a big organisation and there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes, but it doesn’t take much to be professional and sit down and say “listen here, we don’t think that we are going to renew your contract”. Then give you the reasons for it. Then you can move on,” De Villiers explained."
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