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Cape Town - Former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers has hit out at incumbent Heyneke Meyer after the Boks failed to win the Rugby World Cup.
A narrow 20-18 semi-final loss to eventual champions New Zealand ended South Africa’s hopes of winning a third World Cup.
De Villiers, whose tenure as Bok coach ended with a quarter-final defeat to Australia at the 2011 World Cup, also feels Meyer has not done enough to transform the team.
De Villiers has also hinted that the South African Rugby Union (SARU) is not committed to transformation.
“SARU clearly knows about one box that Meyer has ticked - it may well be that Meyer is pushing its agenda of not wanting to transform,” De Villiers wrote in his TimesLIVE column.
“By only affording Rudy Paige three minutes of game time against Argentina and omitting Siya Kolisi from the match-day 23, Meyer took hope away from our children who want to become Springboks. Paige and Kolisi - the future of South African rugby - didn't exclude themselves.
“South Africa didn't utilise their whole squad to the best of their ability in the pool stages given the opposition, and missed an opportunity to blood the young guns during the bronze-medal match. In every war there are casualties and Meyer has done the aforementioned players a disservice. It's time Meyer and the men in suits were honest with the South African public because if nobody steps in to heal the land, there will be an eruption of epic proportions.”
De Villiers also criticised the Springboks' style of play, saying it's sad that a provincial team - the Golden Lions - have to show the national team the way forward on how to play.
