Rugby: Boks captain rubbishes rumours

New Springboks rugby captain Joost van der Westhuizen has dismissed reports of dissension and growing rifts in his team as "crap".

While coach Nick Mallett confined his discussion firmly to his team selection in his first and only media session of the week, van der Westhuizen deflected allegations of a split in the team over the sacking of previous captain Gary Teichmann and claims of a tension between Mallett and his assistant Alan Solomons.

The Pretoria News claimed the coaches were not on talking terms as they approached Sunday's (NZ time) Tri-Nations test against the All Blacks.

"I must say that's just a bunch of crap," halfback van der Westhuizen said.

"I wish we could take just one journalist and put him in the side and let him see it for himself."

He also rubbished earlier reports about selection bias, that players of English ancestry were favoured over Afrikaans and players from Mallett's Cape districts were preferred to those from the Natal and Johannesburg areas.

"We respect each other's language, we respect each other's culture - that's the way it should in a team sport," van der Westhuizen said.