BAGSHOT, England (AFP) - Mike Tindall insisted that England's performance against South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday would be unaffected by captain Jason Robinson's media boycott.
The 30-year-old full-back, who last week became the first black man, as well as the first former rugby league player, to captain an England union team in the 70-0 rout of Canada, said Tuesday he would not be speaking to the media in the run-up to the Springboks match because of "unwarranted intrusion" into his private life.
Sale skipper Robinson, who was unhappy at attempts to contact his former girlfriend and mother of his first child, refused to attend Wednesday's captain's press conference at the squad's south-east England training base where his place was taken by vice-captain Tindall.
The Bath centre, who himself has had a high profile because of his relationship with Zara Phillips, the daughter of Britain's Princess Anne, said dealing with the media was something he had learned to accept.
"I just get on with my life, it's all I can do," he said.
Asked if the team's preparations had been affected by Robinson's stand, Tindall replied: "Nothing's changed. We've had the best preparation we can.
"It (the Robinson issue) is a bit annoying. Unfortunately, it goes with the media as a whole."
Tindall, 26, likened the effect of Robinson's captaincy to that of World Cup-winning skipper Martin Johnson and said it was easy to see why new England coach Andy Robinson, for whom the Canada match was his first in charge, had picked him to lead the side in the absence of injured fly-half Jonny Wilkinson.
"Jason's done an awesome job. People always ask why Johnno was such a good captain and I'd always say because you could watch him on the field and he'd lead by example. If there was a brick wall, he's run through it if he had to.
"With Jason, if you look at what he did (score a hat-trick), fair enough people might say it was Canada but he does it to every team and he just carves people up. It's inspiring to watch and you can feed off that on the field."
Looking ahead, Tindall, scorer of ten tries in 39 England Tests, said Saturday's match against Tri-Nations champions South Africa - whose hopes of a Grand Slam ended with last Saturday's 17-12 defeat against Ireland in Dublin - would be a valuable marker for the world champions.
After winning the World Cup, England suffered Six Nations defeats against Ireland and France earlier this year before losing all three Tests on their summer tour of New Zealand and Australia.
"Things do change when you win a World Cup but ultimately you are still playing rugby to be the best you can be.
"We'd set the challenge of once we'd won it, we had to defend the title and we did that very poorly, first in the Six Nations and then on the summer tour.
"It was a good kick up the arse to prove we were not the be-all and end-all."
One of the many intriguing battles in Saturday's match will be the midfield confrontation that sees Tindall and England team-mate Henry Paul up against the Springbok pairing of De Wet Barry and the in-form Marius Joubert.
"They are both very typical South African centres," Tindall said. "De Wet Barry is strong and puts his body on the line. He's generally a nuisance but very good at it.
"Joubert hits holes very well and is in awesome try-scoring form at the moment. They are a well-balanced partnership."

11/17/2004 - 18:47 GMT - AFP