Former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers believes the selections for last Saturday’s Test against Argentina took South African rugby back to the apartheid days.

In the wake of the Boks’ first-ever defeat to Argentina, which has created a wave of criticism and saw trade union Cosatu raise issues around a lack of transformation, De Villiers took a swipe at the selection decisions.

‘I believe the Boks' problems started in the build-up to the Test, when Heyneke Meyer underestimated the intelligence of black people with a dishonest selection,’ De Villiers wrote in The Times.

‘In the lead-up to the Durban Test, when Meyer had to choose between [Jesse] Kriel and the fit-again Jean de Villiers, he duly dropped a player of colour on the wing [Cornal Hendricks] to accommodate the former. That decision took the country back to the late '80s, when blacks supported the opposing teams because of apartheid.’

Read De Villiers's full column

Photo: Chris Ricco/BackpagePix