Rowntree rounds on embattled de Villiers
The under-fire de Villiers tried to justify the actions of Schalk Burger in the now infamous eye-gouging incident at the start of the second Test last week. Yesterday, Rowntree described the comments as “totally out of order, crass and pathetic”.
“There is no place in the game for gouging; I’ve seen what Brian said and I agree with what he said. I can’t understand how anyone could condone the action, because I wouldn’t back one of my players if that happened.
“It is ridiculous what he said. You cannot get away with making those comments.
“There is no room for gouging in the game. Why players would even do it with all the cameras that are around is beyond me.
“We are upset by it, but we are quite happy to move on. It has been done and dealt with.”
Lions captain Paul O’Connell was less colourful in his description of de Villiers’ comments, but to the point as well: “I think it was probably a clumsy thing to say after the game; he probably should have thought about it a little more but he has come out now and apologised.
“We have all made mistakes and he made a big one on Saturday after the game.”
For de Villiers, it seems there has been one verbal gaffe after another. If it’s not the Lions or the South African Rugby Union having a pop, it’s somebody else.
When describing Burger’s incident he said rugby should not be compared to ballet.But yesterday those words came back to haunt him when the artistic director of the South African Ballet Theatre suggested de Villiers should bring his Springboks team in for just one day of ballet training.
“We did it with a soccer team recently and they crawled out the door afterwards,” said Ian MacDonald.
On a more positive note, Rowntree believes the Lions still have everything to play for on Saturday. “I think we can hold our heads up high; the guys have given it everything, the series has been colossal and the Springboks know they were in the mother of all battles.
“I’m slow to say it because I know there were other massive games involving the Lions over the years but I thought last week must rank pretty high up in terms of the great Lions Test performances.
“South Africa might think they have us on the ropes, they might think we’re being held together by elastoplast because of the injuries and the two defeats, but we have more in the tank, I’m sure of that.”
Rowntree nonetheless realises that with both Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones ruled out of the tour, that further injury to any of the front row players could have disastrous consequences for the Lions.
“We have enough cover but we must hope to avoid further injury problems,” he admitted.
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