{"id":297592,"date":"2023-10-30T09:24:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T09:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstons.com\/?p=297592"},"modified":"2023-10-30T09:24:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T09:24:16","slug":"south-africa-squads-private-reaction-to-england-rugby-world-cup-racism-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstons.com\/rugby-league\/south-africa-squads-private-reaction-to-england-rugby-world-cup-racism-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa squad’s private reaction to England Rugby World Cup racism storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Borthwick backs Curry after racial slur controversy calling it a 'World Rugby matter'<\/h3>\n

Damian De Allende has revealed that the South Africa team did not discuss the ongoing racism accusations made against Bongi Mbonambi whilst preparing for the World Cup final. The Springboks went on to win the tournament, beating New Zealand 12-11 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s success was almost overshadowed earlier in the tournament though when they clinched a narrow success over England in the semi-finals. After the match, it soon emerged that Tom Curry had alleged that South Africa\u2019s Mbonambi had called him a \u2018white c***\u2019 in the first half and asked referee Ben O\u2019Keeffe for advice on how to deal with the matter.<\/p>\n

World Rugby promptly began investigating the matter before announcing on Thursday that there was \u2018insufficient evidence\u2019 to act upon the accusations, meaning that Mbonambi could feature in the final for the Boks. The hooker played just two minutes against New Zealand before being forced off through injury, relying on his teammates to grind out the narrow victory.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the success, De Allende has insisted that despite the severity of the racism saga, South Africa did not allow the investigation to impact their preparation for the final. He explained: \u201cWe never spoke about it.<\/p>\n

Buy all of your Rugby World Cup 2023 programmes here<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“Rassie [Erasmus], our Director of Rugby, sorted it out and never brought it into the team. We just moved on to training, we didn\u2019t let it come between us. As a squad, we back each other. If you do something wrong, you own up to it and say: \u2018I\u2019m sorry, I made a mistake, I did something wrong\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBongi never did that so we accepted he didn\u2019t do anything wrong and we moved on from it straight after the game. Even though it came up and there was a big media blow-up, I think Bongi handled it well.<\/p>\n