Hoskins support for under-fire De Villiers
Scrum.com
September 12, 2008

Springbok coach Peter de Villiers and SARU president Oregan Hoskins met in Durban on Friday to discuss "matters of mutual concern".

SA Rugby confirmed that the duo met as planned following the conclusion of South Africa's Tri-Nations campaign.

Hoskins said the pair enjoyed an excellent meeting in which issues were frankly and honestly addressed.

Hoskins expressed SARU's support for De Villiers in the event of legal action against media organisations who have continued to repeat the defamatory allegations against the Springbok coach.

He said that those allegations had placed the coach under intensely personal as well as unwarranted public pressure and scrutiny, which had led to an understandable outburst from De Villiers in the immediate wake of the revelations.

However De Villiers accepted and apologised for the offence caused and the implications of his emotional suggestion that he might "give the job back to the whites."

He accepted that it was a wild generalisation but the personal pressure he was under in the hours shortly after the publication of the blackmail allegations and in the wake of the racist incident at Coca-Cola Park had influenced a knee-jerk reaction that he accepts was wrong.

The statement from SA Rugby added that neither Hoskins or De Villiers would be commenting further.

© Scrum.com

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