Brenden Nel

I don't think anybody in South Africa... There's been some suggestions that there's this culture of doping in the spring box and things like that, which is totally ridiculous because those players get tested so much.

I don't see, I've never seen a player tell me that, you know, heard anything about a player that's been tested.

In fact, the only guys I've ever heard about in sort of conversations have been the guys who've been tested positive either that same time or just shortly after that.

So...

Well, I think the first thing you'll see where it happened last year and it happens again this year, and the Springboks have been quite clever about that.

We've got this game against the Barbarians.

It's a useless game.

It's a run out.

It's just a hit out for the guys.

And that game has been basically organized just for the Japanese players.

That's the reason behind it.

Because the Japanese league ends three or four weeks before their test match,

um the rest of the rest of the players in south africa are playing in europe or in the urc playing up to about two weeks before then so they've a lot more condition but that game is generally for them what i found actually i spoke at a long interview with monnie the book the other day as well

about his time in Japan and the Konya Am we were on with him the other day as well.

And the general sense that you get, well, first of all, the guys love it in Japan.

The culture, and I'm sure the All Black players say the same.

The culture, the vibe, the different environment, the way the Japanese clubs handle them, they really enjoy that.

second of all the the the hits aren't as big um i think they they manage their bodies better and i think i think that the japanese league does that well with them so they feel they're playing enough rugby and getting enough game time against some quality opposition and yeah we tend to look down on the japanese league because yeah if you put them in super rugby put in the urc they probably struggle but

I think in terms of playing against guys like Richie Maunga and those type of players, Bernard Foley, those type of international players, there's still quality players there.

The leagues might not be as high as the other ones, but they're still playing high-class rugby.