South African rugby coach Peter de Villiers and former Chelsea Football Club manager Jose Mourinho have two things in common. Although both are winners they win in a manner which detracts massively from their successes.

Introducing himself to the British media after arriving in London in June, 2004, Mourinho said: “Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one.”

Not as special as he had perhaps imagined, given that Chelsea were relieved to part company with him ‘by mutual consent’ little over three years later in September 2007. The ego had landed. And flown off again.

Following Saturday’s Pretoria Test triumph, among the many things de Villiers said was: “I am a God-given talent and am the best that I can be. I know what I am and I don’t give a damn.

“If I am supposed to be the weakest link (in the Springbok set-up), then we are bloody strong.”

Grace and charm personified? Sadly not.

But while de Villiers’ immodest self-aggrandisement did no real harm other than to himself, his suggestion that Springbok flanker Schalk Burger had not deserved to be yellow-carded for attempting to gouge the eyes of Lions winger Luke Fitzgerald was highly damaging to the game of which he claimed gouging to be part.

To this noxious attempt to defend the indefensible add a ludicrous comparison between the physicality of rugby football and ballet dancing, a bizarre reference to the Nobel Prize for Peace shared by FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, and a paranoid suggestion that the ’Boks had not received the plaudits to which he felt they were entitled, and you have most of the bullet-points of a quite incredible diatribe.

His attempt to minimise Burger’s thuggery by calling it “part of the game” failed abjectly. De Villiers’s clearly embarrassed employers reacted promptly by issuing a statement in which South African Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins said: “We would like to apologise for the erroneous impression that acts of foul play are in any way condoned by South African rugby. That has never been the case, and is not now, and we support strong actions by rugby authorities when such acts occur.”

De Villiers offered an apology of sorts, too, though you could almost see the green-blazered arms pushing him through the curtain to the microphone whence he delivered it.

Burger — the IRB World Player of the Year in 2004 — is no wronged innocent or the victim of a harsh reprimand. Quite the opposite — in the vernacular he has ‘history’, both of foul play and of having escaped lightly. Others, with no previous convictions of on-field wrongdoing, have suffered much more hefty punishments having been found guilty of gouging.

Ten years ago Colomiers' Richard Nones was banned for two years. In 2007 Northampton’s Dylan Hartley was banned for six months. Last year Perpignan’s Marius Tincu was banned for 18 weeks, with a further 18 added when it emerged that he had continued to play during his period of suspension.

Also in 2008, former Ulster flanker, Northampton’s Neil Best, picked up an 18-week ban, while Leicester’s Seru Rabeni was given a 14-week suspension, with nine more added as further punishment once it was discovered he had played in a Sevens tournaments whilst serving his ban.

Italy’s Mauro Bergamasco served 13 weeks of inaction for gouging in a Six Nations clash with Wales in 2008. Another Italian, captain Sergio Parisse, has just been banned for eight weeks for similar foul play against New Zealand. Earlier Gloucester’s Olivier Azam had earned himself a nine-week suspension.

Closer to home, of course, Munster’s Alan Quinlan was banned for 12 weeks for gouging in the Heineken Cup semi-final against Leinster at Croke Park. Ironically, that cost him a place on the Lions’ South African tour.

You may wonder why I opened with a reference to soccer’s Mourinho. It was prompted by a telling observation by Brian O'Driscoll. Referring to de Villiers’ post-second Test defence of Burger followed by that half-baked apology, Ireland’s outraged Grand Slam captain said: “Someone made a really good point to me that kids or parents watching an interview like that, questioning whether they should have their kid play rugby or soccer, that's their decision made right there.”

These are not the first ill-advised comments of which de Villiers has been guilty. This time, though, he has strayed far beyond eccentric, egotistical, mildly embarrassing but largely harmless tomfoolery. He has besmirched rugby football’s image.