The Springboks' brains trust had to field a barrage of questions about their recruitment of Australian coaches when they arrived in Perth on Tuesday.

Coach Harry Viljoen and captain Bob Skinstad faced the Australian media shortly after touching down and the coach's hiring of three former Wallaby assistant coaches overshadowed the media conference. The general feeling from the Australian media contingent was that it is unethical for coaches to defect to other countries.

Viljoen obviously disagreed and said in a professional era you cannot stop people from offering their services to whomever they want.

"We are in a professional era. You cannot stop people moving around. Tim Lane (the Bok backline and former Wallaby assistant coach) was not hired to give us inside information on Australian players. He was hired to improve the standard of our backline play.

"In any case, after finishing with the Wallabies Tim coached in France for a year before he joined us. It has been said that Tim gave us an 'open book' on the Wallabies, well I haven't seen it. Before the Test in Pretoria last week we focused more on the structure of the Wallabies' play and how to put pressure on them. We were not worried about things such as the names of their moves."

And he got support from captain Skinstad. "Tim offers an integral knowledge of the game in general. He did not spend the week giving us a run down on Australian individuals. In fact, Les Kiss (the defence coach) played more of a role in the build-up to that Test."

Viljoen said coming to Perth almost two weeks before the August 18th Test against Australia at Subiaco Oval would stand them in good stead. "It's nice to get away from the spotlight we have on us at home. We have the time to get over the jet lag, which in any case is not going to be that bad because of the closeness of Perth to Jo'burg."

The fact that the Boks crossed six time zones should be forgotten when they start their serious preparations on Wednesday.