Some of the gems from Springboks coach Peter de Villiers –

We look back at some of the gems from Springboks coach Peter de Villiers, who stepped down from the top job after his team’s loss to the Wallabies.

Comparing Schalk Burger / Bakkies Botha to FW De Klerk / Nelson Mandela:
“The small things like judicial hearings will not take away the fact that we won. Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize. No matter what they did wrong in their lives, no one can take away the fact that they won it.”

When asked if he is the weakest link in the Bok setup:
“If I’m the weakest link then we are bloody strong. I’m a God-given talent. I am the best I can ever be. I know what I am and I don’t give a damn.”

Defending Ricky Januarie ahead of the second Lions Test, then not selecting him for the game:
“What I learned in South Africa is, if you take your car to a garage and the owner is black or a black man, and they mess it up, you never go back to that garage. If the owner is white, you say ag, sorry, they made a mistake and you go back again. This is how some people live their lives in this country.”

When asked why Morgan Newman was picked for the SA XV against Namibia:
“Ja, you know. Morgan Newman has been in form his whole life.”

When asked if he’ll change his style after a week of criticism:
“I won’t change my style, if I change my style I will change Peter de Villiers, and then I would have to tell God that he made a mistake when he made me,”

Ahead of a test against Wales:
“We will give them a psychological advantage and we cannot allow that. We’ve read in the papers here that they believe South Africa are ripe for the picking. They’re comparing us with some fruit from a Welsh fruit farm but they need to know that when you pick fruit, it isn’t just apples and pears; there are prickly pears as well. We want to be a prickly pear for them this Saturday.”

After the Boks’ second consecutive win over the All Blacks in the 2009 Trinations:
“The way things are going right now, in a few year’s time these guys won’t need a coach”

On the Boks’ gameplan:
“We are very organised at the moment, we don’t want to become a fruit salad…”
On referee bias:
“Speaking to IRB referee’s boss Paddy O’ Brien is a complete waste of time. People don’t want to see other teams being successful. That is my biggest problem at the moment. We can’t go public about certain things because we don’t have all the evidence, but the body language of certain officials when things went against us in that game made us worry. The officials were so happy when decisions went against us on the day. I am talking about the number one rugby team in the world. Shouldn’t they really get the other guys to that level? Or do they want to break things down so that the game can become mediocre and everyone has a chance to win it. We don’t want to dwell on that point, but if that is the case, then I feel I am wasting my time by talking to them. I will then have to reconsider talking to them.”

After criticising Hamilton as being boring:
Reporter: “So Peter de Villiers did you find anything to do in Hamilton?”
PDV: “Ja you know, we did find something to do. We won the Trinations in Hamilton.”

Before the Newlands Test against the All Blacks which the Boks lost:
“If you look at the Bible and see how Joseph got out of the pit and ended up in the palace, but between the pit and the palace there was a moerse lot of kak.”

On South Africa’s victory over the All Blacks:
“We went wild, wild, wild — some of the guys went wilder than that.”

Peter and Sipho Mabuse -before Sipho sang the National Anthem at Soccer City prior to All Black game in 2012 -(Boks lost )

On journalists and the media:
“I don’t care. I don’t take an interest in your job, but I’m glad you take an interest in mine.”

De Villiers accuses the All Blacks of cheating:
“I know the game. Technically, I’m very strong. When I said the All Blacks were cheaters in the first Test in Wellington, I picked up some of the technical stuff they did wrong in the scrums and how they played outside of the laws and how they used that to good effect. I also picked up that, instead of standing a metre apart in the line-outs, they stood a metre and a half apart so that we couldn’t compete; and anything outside of any law is cheating.”

On matching the All Blacks:
“I do not like to prepare guys to cheat and it seems to me to be the only way forward if you want to be on top of those kind of things, and that’s 70 per cent of our game.”

On himself:
“Ninety-five per cent of people all around the world are conventional people, they go with the crowd. They only do what other people do. They can’t be their own person. I’ve got a job to do. I think I’m a strong individual, a strong character. I don’t care what people think about me, I don’t care what people say about me. It’s what I think about me and myself – and I love myself a lot. It’s about me and my team and my country. If I’m respected in my team, I don’t care about what other people think.”

Why he lost respect for Luke Watson
“When I did bring Luke into the team at the start of my stint as Springbok coach, a lot of water had already flowed under the bridge. Luke was at a disadvantage of what had happened in the Jake era, as the players knew that he had been forced upon the team squad as player number 46. I was disappointed with Luke when he refused to cooperate with some of the senior players when they did open themselves to him. On a few occasions Victor Matfield and John Smit tried to involve Luke in their team discussions. ‘What do you think about that idea Luke? Do you think it would work? they would ask him. Luke would say: ‘I am just here to observe’. His attitude made me change my mind about him.”

The Mandela of rugby
“I managed to unite more people in this country. I don’t want to bring Mandela in here, but I think I was the Mandela of rugby … I brought hope to people, to motivate them and encourage them to learn.”

On being misunderstood
“I don’t care if people don’t understand me. It’s not my duty to say directly to your face that you’re ugly, I say you aren’t pretty and if you can’t read between the lines then it’s not my problem. There’s no pill for stupid”

On South Africans
“We do understand going to the world that people don’t keep South Africans in high regard. They look down on us and think we’re a bunch of hooligans and that there are elephants running in the street. You can see it when referees make decisions … it’s always a kind of biased thing.”

Reacting to news that there is an alleged sex tape of him:
“I think I should walk away from this job and give it back to the whites.”

On the Boks’ prospects at the 2011 World Cup:
“In our group we are expecting tough games from Tonga and Fiji.” – Tonga are not in the Boks’ group.

Following Schalk Burger’s banning during the Lions series:
“If we want to eye-gouge any Lions we will go down to the bushveld like we do and eye- gouge them there.”

“If we are going on like this, why don’t we go to the nearest ballet shop, get some tutus and get a dancing shop going? There will be no eye-gouging, no tackling, no nothing and we will enjoy it.”

“I know dancing is also a contact sport but rugby is far from dancing. If you want to run with the big dogs then sometimes you have to lift your leg”

“If I lie in hospital and I hear they are putting someone’s head back on that was ripped off by Schalk then I’d say: ‘That’s Schalk, he plays aggressive but he’s not malicious’”

“What we try to tell them is when you point your finger into the sky, don’t concentrate on the finger because you’ll miss all the heavenly glory out there. Concentrate on the heavenly glory you can bring and make yourselves so fulfilled.”

His philosophy on winning:
“There’s little difference between winning and losing, except you feel better after winning.”

Getting biblical:
“The same people who threw their robes on the ground when Jesus rode on a donkey were the same people who crowned him and hit him with sticks, and were the same people who said afterwards how we shouldn’t have done that, he’s the son of God. So that’s exactly what we do. You have to look at history as repeating itself. And I’m not saying that I’m God.”

On clever people:
” I am a ‘small-brain’ person. A small-brain person doesn’t need to go sit down and study over what he’s going to say to people; it comes naturally. People who study and get A’s and B’s are clever people. But people who don’t go and study and have all that wisdom are wise.”

On the haters:
“If you look at those people who say all those things about me you will ask: How did God manage to create those people?”

On Robbie Deans:
“If Robbie Deans says it, then it’s different. I mean, Robbie Deans is a good coach and I am not.”

On journalists and journalism:
“You won’t believe me but I haven’t read a newspaper in two years and I’m not about to start now.”

Playing on the moon:
“I have such a wonderful bunch of guys to choose from and there is pressure on all of them to perform. But even if you’re playing a game on the moon, if you have the skills and you play well, you will win.”

When asked if he was an affirmative action appointment:
“They certainly didn’t vote for me because I have a lovely smile”
The magician:
“I’m going to pull a rat out of the hat”

On the British press:
“I heard the papers went mad. Sorry for them. Do they know we won the match? We‘ve taken 12 years to beat the Lions and if we beat them by one point or 20 points it does not matter.”

Life in South Africa:
“I believe life within your own country is sometimes a burden because you have to face it every day, but when you go outside your borders, you see it is actually worse.”

Not making public his view that the All Blacks are being favoured:
“I’ve got my own observations about the last two Tests, and I can’t say it in public. But we do have a World Cup in New Zealand next year, and maybe it was the right thing for them to win the games so they can attract more people to the games next year.”

Coming out in support of accused cop-killer Bees Roux of the Blue Bulls:
“We definitely talked about Bees Roux. We feel for all South Africans and especially rugby players. A situation like this could happen to anybody. People are ugly outside, they’re dirty and they try and use everything to stop us from bringing hope to the people out there. It’s a tragic situation and we wish it upon nobody. The team supports him 100 %. Not on the deed, but … how the situation developed”

On Francois Hougaard:
“He is a player you can take to war.”

Asked if he thought the 2010 win against England had saved his job:
“I never employed myself. It would be a lot easier if I did. I don’t care. The pressure I respond to is to deliver for the country, to give hope to South Africans. That does not mean we won’t make mistakes. You can slaughter me if I make a big mistake, I just hope you can sell the meat.”

On Frans Steyn:
“Does he want to be here or not? I can’t understand if he doesn’t have a heart for the Springbok jersey.”

Graham Henry on Peter De Villiers:
“I can’t really take anything he says seriously.”

Peter De Villiers on Graham Henry:
“Graham Henry is a good coach, but he’s like me, he has a big mouth.”

Explaining his comment on Graham Henry:
“I said that, like me, he’s got a big mouth and what I meant by that is that he’s a very honest guy. People respect him all around the world for his honesty. He’s a student of the game, he knows the game and his players respect him a lot.”

Aussie reporter Greg Growden on Peter De Villiers:
“The Richard Pryor of rugby was in town.”

Aussie commentator Brendan Cannon on Peter De Villiers:
“I can’t believe that senior players like John Smit and Victor Matfield allow themselves to be controlled by this guy. He is a clown. He surely does not coach the team.”

Oregan Hoskins on Peter De Villiers:
“I want to be honest with South Africa and say that the appointment was not entirely made for rugby reasons. We as an organisation have made the appointment and taken into account the issue of transformation very seriously when we made it.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s the best coach in the world, but I wouldn’t say he’s inferior to Jake White.”