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Comparing Schalk Burger / Bakkies Botha to FW De Klerk / Nelson Mandela:
“The small things like judicial hearings will not take away the fact that we won. Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize. No matter what they did wrong in their lives, no one can take away the fact that they won it.”
When asked if he is the weakest link in the Bok setup:
“If I’m the weakest link then we are bloody strong. I’m a God-given talent. I am the best I can ever be. I know what I am and I don’t give a damn.â€
Defending Ricky Januarie ahead of the second Lions Test, then not selecting him for the game:
“What I learned in South Africa is, if you take your car to a garage and the owner is black or a black man, and they mess it up, you never go back to that garage. If the owner is white, you say ag, sorry, they made a mistake and you go back again. This is how some people live their lives in this country.”
When asked why Morgan Newman was picked for the SA XV against Namibia:
“Ja, you know. Morgan Newman has been in form his whole life.”
When asked if he’ll change his style after a week of criticism:
“I won’t change my style, if I change my style I will change Peter de Villiers, and then I would have to tell God that he made a mistake when he made me,”
Ahead of a test against Wales:
“We will give them a psychological advantage and we cannot allow that. We’ve read in the papers here that they believe South Africa are ripe for the picking. They’re comparing us with some fruit from a Welsh fruit farm but they need to know that when you pick fruit, it isn’t just apples and pears; there are prickly pears as well. We want to be a prickly pear for them this Saturday.â€
After the Boks’ second consecutive win over the All Blacks in the 2009 Trinations:
“The way things are going right now, in a few year’s time these guys won’t need a coach”
On the Boks’ gameplan:
“We are very organised at the moment, we don’t want to become a fruit salad…”
On referee bias:
“Speaking to IRB referee’s boss Paddy O’ Brien is a complete waste of time. People don’t want to see other teams being successful. That is my biggest problem at the moment. We can’t go public about certain things because we don’t have all the evidence, but the body language of certain officials when things went against us in that game made us worry. The officials were so happy when decisions went against us on the day. I am talking about the number one rugby team in the world. Shouldn’t they really get the other guys to that level? Or do they want to break things down so that the game can become mediocre and everyone has a chance to win it. We don’t want to dwell on that point, but if that is the case, then I feel I am wasting my time by talking to them. I will then have to reconsider talking to them.”
After criticising Hamilton as being boring:
Reporter: “So Peter de Villiers did you find anything to do in Hamilton?”
PDV: “Ja you know, we did find something to do. We won the Trinations in Hamilton.”
Before the Newlands Test against the All Blacks which the Boks lost:
“If you look at the Bible and see how Joseph got out of the pit and ended up in the palace, but between the pit and the palace there was a moerse lot of kak.â€
On South Africa’s victory over the All Blacks:
“We went wild, wild, wild — some of the guys went wilder than that.â€
On journalists and the media:
“I don’t care. I don’t take an interest in your job, but I’m glad you take an interest in mine.â€
De Villiers accuses the All Blacks of cheating:
“I know the game. Technically, I’m very strong. When I said the All Blacks were cheaters in the first Test in Wellington, I picked up some of the technical stuff they did wrong in the scrums and how they played outside of the laws and how they used that to good effect. I also picked up that, instead of standing a metre apart in the line-outs, they stood a metre and a half apart so that we couldn’t compete; and anything outside of any law is cheating.â€
On matching the All Blacks:
“I do not like to prepare guys to cheat and it seems to me to be the only way forward if you want to be on top of those kind of things, and that’s 70 per cent of our game.”
On himself:
“Ninety-five per cent of people all around the world are conventional people, they go with the crowd. They only do what other people do. They can’t be their own person. I’ve got a job to do. I think I’m a strong individual, a strong character. I don’t care what people think about me, I don’t care what people say about me. It’s what I think about me and myself – and I love myself a lot. It’s about me and my team and my country. If I’m respected in my team, I don’t care about what other people think.”