De Villiers' outburst about referees should be punished

Well said indeed

Who exactly is he in trouble with Invictus? I do not think PDV is the kind of man that will take abuse from irrelevant sports portfolio comitee members, they are to busy with the Caster "Two Balls" Semenya saga to worry about the Boks.

Outstanding.

Just because you appoint a clown as the coach doesn't mean he should be held to the standards of a comedian.

If Deans or Henry said it, the Bokke would be over them like a rash. Seems like PdV is regarded as the drunk old uncle at the BBQ everyone ignores the ramblings of. Agreed he should be fined, but if and when the IRB did it, imagine the SAF response .... They get bad enough when you allege their top female athletes are blokes ... :)

Strewth this is the most convincing drunk rant & rave that I've read in a while. Nice! By the way, well to Sth Africa. Easily the best team in the Tri Nations and worthy winners.

Charmingly South African sentiment. Nothing like being gracious in winning, is there?

P divvy is right and fuuuuk the rest of you cause the wooody is on the way. Cheerrs till next year.

Obviously Bryce Lawrence is not aware of any of these rules.

Wally Good point in regards to kids listening to PDv. Its not the message he should be sending. Not good for his credibility. You mustn't be all that familar with King of the Hill. My 'Boomhauer' reference was alluding to his nonsensical nature. The accent just contrubutes to it.

Aaah, a conversation after my own heart - I agree with both of you Bruce and WCR. After the weekend there were two things I really took away from the scrums. 1. our dominance disappeared when TPN went off, that last scrum for him at the 32nd minute was a thing of beauty. I so hope he is back and fit next week. 2. with twenty minutes to go Alexander started reaching for his hit, left his feet too far behind him and we started seeing a lot of collapses. I think it was just tiredness, it was only his second run on test and he hasn't played 80 mins regularly for a while. Cannot understand why Cowan wasn't brought on.

Sorry, Working, I didn't make myself clear. I have nothing against props being totally aggressive and ruthless. But the purpose of dominant scrummaging in my view is to drive the opposition backwards rather than to pop the opponent.

Bruce As bad as this may sound. I always recieved sort of a buzz when I knew I had my opposite Prop. But at the same time I only happened if he put up a fight. I disagree with your point on competence. I was an aggressive player. And I believed that if you weren't experienced in that position you shouldn't be playing in it. I learned to scrummage intially by playing two grades above my own. Where more often than not due to the age difference my opposite had the experience on me. The front row is no place for the faint hearted. And should be merciless. I learnt the hard way. I lost a spot in a Schoolboy team in the early rep stages. I faced a obviously inexperienced prop who's binding was dangerous. I helped him out by fixing it and went easy on him in the hit by the ref's request. At the end of the trial my School Coach who had previously coached successful NSW Schoolboys campaigns (U16's) had me as a sure thing. Come the next day. I missed out and the prop I had eased off on was in. It's not the competence of the dominant, it's the incompetence of the weaker Prop.

Yes, Working, I played all my rugby as a prop. I have always held to the view that the main reason for playing rugby is that it was the only way I could get to scrummage. I totally agree with you that there was nothing illegal in the Wallabies' scrummaging and that the referee was clearly right in penalising the 'Boks pack. In my opinion the most uncomfortable situation to be in is where you end up with your head on your chest and your feet come off the ground. That is scary. It is great fun to establish dominance and to terrify your opposite number but it should not be overdone. I have always believed that a really competent prop should try to prevent his opponent going to ground or standing up. You want him to be in a position where you can effectively continue to impose force on his scrum. Many years ago I watched a very good Kiwi prop playing in the Illawarra club competition. He was rumoured to have been an All Blacks triallist, but in those days they all were. He was up against a big, young and clearly inexperienced prop whom he popped in every scrum. I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen. Once a player is popped all the forces in the scrum are resolved and, as in this case, the half back on the weak scrummaging side has no difficulty getting the ball away and his backline is no longer forced to back pedal.

Bruce Were you a piggy too. All I know is last Saturday its was quite clear that the Wallaby front drove through the Boks not up. The pressure created by this effectively 'popped' Smit and Du Plessis backs out of the ideal position. If you have ever had that happen to you its not a good place to be. I know if I successful did it to an opposite prop I'd drive in hard to force him either retreat or raise up out of the scrum. And if PDv had half a clue about scrums he'd be able to tell how a scrum will go from the hit. You could see Smit was in trouble in most of the scrums from the hit. As were the Wallabies when the Boks got the better of it. The facts are its not the refs or some conspiracy against the Boks. It the Boks themselves and in order to overcome it they need to forget about crying foul and fix it. PDV a 'player's coach'. I guess that is what is wanted really. But if he takiong his cues from the player's. That's setting him up for a fall. Say if he does consult with the likes of Matfield and Smit. That's fine as both have very asute Rugby brains. But they are also amongst the oldest in the squad. what happens if at the end of this years guys like Matfield, Smit, Botha, De Villers and Fourie those who from the majority of the experienced leadership all retire, even if it happened over the next 18 months. PDv could be in trouble. Yes, the would be the talent to replace them. But not the know how and influence.

I see he's in trouble for not selecting enough ethnically suitable players, as well. How exactly do you keep the Boks winning as well as change over to a predominantly coloured squad? Don't get me wrong, the non-white players currently selected are pretty damn good but making the team majority coloured at this point would be suicide, eg I don't think there is a coloured player to replace Matfield, or Broussow, or du Preez, or Morne Steyn etc. It will come in time. The SA government doesn't seem to understand this.

While that might be relevant in determining damages (in that a court might say people don't take his opinion seriously so less damage to the ref's reputation has been caused), "being an idiot" isn't a defence to defamation! I don't think anything will come of this, cause refs get criticised and have to rise above all of it to get by, but I also think the IRB should step in and issue a fine (if they've got the authority). It's a pretty big slap in the face to the IRB especially after the armband debacle.