Ex-Springboks coach hails ‘maverick’ Rassie Erasmus and his ‘mad plans’

Former Springboks assistant coach Swys de Bruin has praised South Africa’s innovation under Rassie Erasmus and revealed the head coach’s rugby gift.

Erasmus began his second stint as head coach of the Boks following the 2023 Rugby World Cup and filled Jacques Nienaber and Felix Jones’ vacancies with Jerry Flannery and Tony Brown respectively.

Brown joined the Bok coaching staff in the position that De Bruin filled ahead of the 2019 World Cup as the team’s attack coach and has already had an impact on the side.

Springboks’ innovation

South Africa have looked far more willing to spread the ball wide on attack with the forwards also getting their hands on the ball more frequently.

His attacking patterns were married with some smart innovations in the Rugby Championship opener against Australia, with Cheslin Kolbe moving to scrum-half for a scrum while the winger also caught a long lineout throw. The Boks also produced a superb set move at a lineout which led to Siya Kolisi scoring the opening try.

With all this in mind, De Bruin is unsure what the team will do next as the coaches continue to be creative, which he believes the players love.

“You never know with these guys, it will be very interesting to see what they have planned,” De Bruin said on Supersport’s Final Whistle show.

“Because the first thing that I saw was Cheslin Kolbe feeding the ball into the scrum and Reinach goes to the back, I love that because we are thinking outside the box.

“They will do much of the same attack-wise though with getting the loose forwards wide and fixing their flat play and fixing their decision-making on when to go wide and when to stay narrow.

“But I won’t be surprised if there is another maul in the midfield again or something like that because the players love it.

“There is nothing that the players enjoy more than if the coach is a maverick and has mad plans but hell it works.”

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Rassie’s rugby brain

During the show De Bruin also told a story about when he worked under Erasmus and how the head coach was able to accurately predict what was about to unfold on the pitch during a November international against France.

“Years back when I was involved with the Springboks, it was amazing to see how Rassie Erasmus sees things three phases ahead before it happens – I don’t know how he does it,” the former Lions coach said.

“Against France, he said to me that we are going to do this now, France are going to maul it but we are going to cut off their legs there and Francois Louw will steal the ball to win the penalty and it happened.

“He then got on the mics to tell Jacques Nienaber that he wanted the maul of their lives from the players and they scored, and I thought ‘Wow you have a gift.'”

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