It’s not fair to compare captaincies of Boks and Lions, says Whiteley

But he said if one really wants to, one can find a few overlapping situations.


Comparing taking charge of the Springbok side, who struggled so much last season, to the Lions, who faced a similar bleak situation some three years back, is not really fair, said Bok skipper Warren Whiteley, also the Lions captain, on Friday in Umhlanga.

Whiteley tasted success in his first outing as Bok skipper last weekend at Loftus in the first Test against France, but believed the situation of the two organisations are much different for many obvious reasons.

“For me it hasn’t felt any different, running on as captain last week; it’s been amazing for me being part of this: the Boks,” said Whiteley.

“Running on this past weekend, it just felt like playing again, just to make those decisions again and it didn’t feel any different,” said the Bok skipper.

But Whiteley said if one really wants to, one can find a few overlapping situations.

“There are similarities if you think of the past with the Lions being off in an even worse position, but as a franchise,” he said.

“But one shouldn’t try to compare the two as they are very different – different dynamics, different challenges, so I don’t try to compare the two at all,” he said.

“For me it’s been great, being at the Boks, there are big things to come and major challenges to face and I’m looking forward to that,” said Whiteley.

Instead Whiteley hammered on their build-up to the second Test with intensity the buzz word both in training and on game day.

“There was no difference in preparation, the boys like to have consistency within our buildup,” said Whiteley.

“There maybe will be one or two things where we want to look at perhaps, the French found some space in behind us that we wanted to talk about.

“The intensity was great and that is one thing we are always chasing during the week, to be accurate, those are important things during our training sessions,” he said.

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