Springbok coach Peter de Villiers defused a potentially explosive situation regarding race quotas in his own inimitable way when he had a junket of journalists in stitches at a press conference on Friday.

It was reported earlier in the week that vice-chairperson of the parliamentary sport portfolio committee, Cedric Frolick, grilled De Villiers over his decision to play Percy Montgomery and Fourie du Preez ahead of players of colour in Conrad Jantjes and Ricky Januarie.

This was the first public political interference that De Villiers has had to endure during his stint as Bok coach, as the issue of racial selections in South African sport continues to rear its head.

The Bok coach was questioned over the incident involving Frolick, but De Villiers made it clear in typical humorous fashion that he would not allow the incident to disrupt the Boks in their preparation for Saturday's crunch Tri-Nations Test against the All Blacks at Newlands.

"I was appointed to do rugby. I promised to people out there — the fans and the players — that I'm going to be honest in what I'm doing, and that we're going to focus on rugby," said De Villiers at the Springbok team hotel in Cape Town.

"We never said it was going to be a perfect world now that I've got the job. You'll always have ups and downs.

"If you look at the Bible, Joseph came from the pit and ended up in the palace. But between the pit and the palace there was a moerse lot of k*k," quipped the Bok coach.

"If he never handled that, he would have never ended up in the palace.

"We are never going to take our eye off our goal. If we are distracted by small things how the devil can we win a Test?" he said.

The conference room erupted with laughter after De Villiers' quip, the latest in a growing collection of memorable quotes from the Bok mentor.

But De Villiers also revealed the serious nature of Saturday's occasion by saying that he and his team were fully focussed on the match, and that they were especially aware on the important meaning of the match in a South African context.

"Games like this don't come around everyday," he mused.

"For Percy (Montgomery) it's a big milestone, but for South African rugby through Percy, it's the biggest thing that can ever happen.

"We've got 800 (past) Springboks, and if you look at how passionate they were about what they did, and for Percy to do the same thing a hundred times over again, and never lose his passion and responsibility towards his country whenever he goes on the field - we can all learn from him.

"He is a true professional and very good at his job.

"He's an inspiration to the team."

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