ALL BLACK LEGEND HITS OUT AT CEO WHO SLAMMED SA’S SUPER RUGBY INVOLVEMENT

New Zealand rugby legend Sir John Kirwan has hit out at Super Rugby Pacific CEO Jack Mesley, who said he would not welcome South Africa back into the southern-hemisphere tournament.

Asked by Martin Devlin on his podcast if he wanted the SA teams, who broke ties with the tournament in 2020 for a move to the northern hemisphere, back in, Mesley wysed: “No. If you go back and look at the data, those games did not rate well.”

Waar wil hy wees, Kirwan wants to know, saying on the Rivals podcast with Victor Matfield earlier this week: “That’s bulls**t... What is Super Rugby? Is it a competition or is it a high-performance competition to prepare us for Test rugby?”

Matfield chipped in: “For me, Super Rugby was the best competition in the world, I get goosebumps thinking about it...

“To me it was tougher to win Super Rugby than a World Cup… ”

Kirwan then added: “I understand why he [the CEO] said that, but I don’t agree with him at all from a high performance point of view, because I think we are missing the physique and the style of rugby the South African’s bring.

“I think we’ve gone backwards - that means the leap from Super Rugby to Test rugby is way bigger than it used to be.

“ I would love to see the data around the crowds and stuff. I just don’t think what he said was on the money for me…”