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Cape Town - Legendary Springbok prop Tendai "Beast" Mtawarira's reworked autobiography is about to hit the shelves after it was recalled earlier this year.
READ | Beast retires: All his incredible career stats
Alterations have been made to comments Mtawarira initially made regarding former national coach Peter de Villiers.
The comments concerning De Villiers caused an uproar in several quarters and it prompted publishers Pan Macmillan to postpone the initial July 1, 2019 release date.
Advance copies of Beast (Tendai Mtawarira, with Andy Capostagno) had already been given to various media houses before the publishers asked for them to be urgently returned.
The delay of the book was at Mtawarira's request, with the player saying he wanted to focus solely on his inclusion in the Springboks' Rugby World Cup squad.
With the book now re-released, Mtawarira remains critical of De Villiers.
He did, however, remove the phrase "as players we had to be careful what we said to the media. What you said would get back to Peter and affect your place in the team."
His comment that "the media did not like Peter and thought he was a bit of a clown" was changed to "some of the media didn't like Peter and thought he was something of a clown."
But Mtawarira stood by his stance on De Villiers' influence: "Peter didn't do much, most of the work was done by the players, and of course Gary (Gold) and Dick (Muir, assistant coaches) were very influential."
Mtawarira, who announced his retirement from Test rugby on Wednesday, did however have some plaudits for De Villiers, saying: "At the end of the day, Peter was the first coach who picked me for the Springboks and he stood by me through all the trouble with the Minster of Sport, so I’m really grateful to him."
- Compiled by Sport24 staff
