Rassie Erasmus and Matt Williams feud heats up as Springboks boss accused of ‘playing the man again’
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and outspoken pundit Matt Williams.
Outspoken pundit and former coach Matt Williams has hit back at Rassie Erasmus after the Springboks boss mocked the Australian online.
Williams has been a long-time critic of some of South African rugby’s innovations under their head coach, with the former Scotland boss especially angered by what he sees as the dangers of the Bomb Squad.
Publicly, he has come out with some big claims, generally aiming his ire towards the Boks, and it has not gone unnoticed by Erasmus.
Rassie Erasmus’ X post
After Williams’ latest outburst, the 52-year-old took to X, formerly Twitter, with a screenshot showing the Australian’s win record as Scottish head coach, drawing particular attention to “17.65%” by highlighting it.
“Matt Williams, the rugby union coach, had a 17.65% win percentage during his tenure coaching Scotland. He coached the team in 17 matches, winning only 3 of them. Two of those wins were against Tier 2 nations, Japan and Samoa, according to Wikipedia,” the text in the image read.
Erasmus’ caption on the post read also read: “Heal Sir Matt.”
Williams has since responded to the Springboks head coach on social media with a rather pointed post.
“Hi Rassie, playing the man and not the ball again?” he wrote in rather rhetorical fashion, before adding: “Always the sign of weak argument.”
It all comes after Williams once again slammed South Africa following the British and Irish Lions’ victory over the Wallabies recently.
He was asked on Off The Ball whether Andy Farrell’s team could be proud of their tour to Australia, which prompted him to go on a rant about the 2021 series in the Republic.
‘An abomination’
“On field, absolutely,” he responded.
“Let’s go back to South Africa, the South African tour was one of the worst tours ever, the worst games of international rugby I think I’ve ever seen.
“The way that both management teams conducted themselves was disgraceful.
“Rassie was running on the field as a water carrier. There was a leaked video criticising referees, ringing people up, and the style of rugby was an abomination.
“All they did was kick across the field and chase it. It was not played in a good spirit.
“It was aggressive, I have no problem with it being aggressive but it wasn’t played in the spirit of rugby.
“The Lions are the keepers of the law. They are so special, and they got to keep going, but to suggest that this Lions tour didn’t restore that absolutely tarnished image of what it meant to play Lions rugby is just a fallacy.
“They came to Australia, and from the first second, Andy Farrell and his coaching staff made the Lions play a running game. They put the ball in hand, they took chances and made errors, because it’s high-risk rugby but jeez, it was entertaining. It was fabulous to watch.”
READ MORE: Matt Williams: B&I Lions restored ‘absolutely tarnished’ image after ‘disgraceful’ Springboks series
