Writing in the Pretoria News, Peter Bills reveals how bad things in the Bok camp have got:

“Unless you believe that rabbits really can be plucked out of conjuror’s hats, then Springbok coach Peter de Villiers has a critical decision to make this Monday morning.

Humiliated by the Durban crowd after South Africa’s latest abject defeat, De Villiers faces probably the key moment of his entire career.

He either makes the decision to walk away from the Springbok job, accepting that playing with Jake White’s retreads is no way to embrace a new philosophy but that he isn’t brave enough to omit them, or he picks a team that just might be capable of producing the game he seeks.

For sure, the present one isn’t. Sources talk of a fractured Springbok camp, of some players who wish only for De Villiers to fail and resign; of others who cannot understand his policy of retaining World Cup winners who simply aren’t delivering any more and others who are plainly bewildered by the goings-on at the highest level of South African rugby.

There is much talk of the senior players virtually taking training off, and of key figures undermining the coach by preaching a completely different philosophy to the one he espouses.”

With thanks to the Pretoria News