Rassie Erasmus comes out to bat for ‘best coach in the world’ Scott Robertson after All Blacks met Argentina ‘on the wrong day’
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and All Blacks counterpart Scott Robertson.
Although South Africa have had the upper hand over New Zealand in recent clashes between these heavyweights of the global game, the Springboks are not underestimating their arch rivals.
That was the word from head coach Rassie Erasmus ahead of the teams’ highly anticipated Rugby Championship encounter at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Saturday.
The Springboks claimed a narrow 12-11 triumph over the All Blacks in last year’s Rugby World Cup final in France and cruised to an emphatic 35-7 victory in a warm-up clash at Twickenham ahead of the global showpiece.
The Boks have also made a superb start to this year’s Rugby Championship as they clinched back-to-back wins over Australia while the All Blacks suffered a shock defeat against Argentina in their tournament opener before bouncing back with a fine win over Los Pumas.
Despite his side’s last two victories in this fixture in 2023, and them being the dominant force in the game in recent years, Erasmus was at pains to highlight that the Boks have plenty of respect for their rivals.
“No, we’ll be stupid if we don’t respect them,” he told reporters. “We’ll be bad coaches, we’ll be stupid players, we’ll be (an) arrogant nation, we’ll quickly be put back in our place. At number six or seven (in the world rankings) which is where we started.
“It’s a team that beat England at home, it’s a team that lost to Argentina, we’ve lost to Argentina, it’s a team that has lost to Argentina before. We beat them only by one point in the World Cup.”
Full of praise for Scott Robertson
The Bok mentor also had special praise for his All Blacks counterpart Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson and said although the start of his tenure as All Blacks coach has had some obstacles, he expects him to come good eventually.
“I just think people must understand although Razor is a fantastic coach, and he might be the best coach in the world, and New Zealand is a rugby mad country, if you lose Richie Mo’unga all of a sudden, and the core of your Crusaders players isn’t there, and you’ve got a few injuries, and you’re trying this guy at 10, and you’ve got a captain out for the first two Test matches, and you strike Argentina on the wrong day, it’s going to be the wrong day,” explained Erasmus.
“That doesn’t make Razor a bad coach. We saw what happened the next week (against Argentina), and now this weekend they’re here.”
Erasmus pointed out that Robertson is no stranger to him – as they were rivals in their playing days – as well as South Africa, particularly Ellis Park, where he has had success with the Crusaders at Super Rugby level in the past.
“Me and him, I think he’s exactly the same size, I might be fatter than him, but age. We played all our Test matches against each other, all our Crusaders matches, our Cats matches, and Free State matches, Lions matches against each other,” he said.
“I’ve had a few beers with him many a time in my life, he would know this stadium really well, I think if you go and search his Razor dance, it will be the Super Rugby trophy, where he won it here on the other day (2017), so they’ve got too much class all around, too good a coaching system, and too good a structure in New Zealand, not to get it right, somewhere.”
Apart from that loss to Argentina and injuries to captain Scott Barrett – who is back in the squad – and fellow first choice forwards Patrick Tuipulotu and Ethan de Groot, the All Blacks also lost the services of their attack coach Leon MacDonald, who stepped down due to differences with Robertson.
Erasmus feels while the All Blacks are a work in progress under Robertson, they are still a dangerous side.
‘It’s not the settled thing’
“I think it’s not the settled thing,” he added. “By that I’m not saying, Jodie Barrett is not settled, and Beauden Barrett is not settled, and (TJ) Perenara hasn’t played many Tests.
“But it’s not like I will go out there and put my All Black team out. We could do that before we played England, in a World Cup. Maybe partly because we’re not so much involved in Super Rugby anymore, and we don’t know these players, and see these players day in and day out, and we’re just tracking them.
“Which is as we analyse them, see this guy’s profile shows a lot of this, or this guy’s profile shows a lot of this, and this guy is dangerous.”
Erasmus also said because the All Blacks have so many attacking threats, his team have to be wary of them at all times.
“It’s still about, the moment you switch off, you know, (Damian) McKenzie would do something. Perenara, when he breaks, when he does a tap kick, it’s with experience, he knows when to (do it). I think he calms things down, and then (they have) a pack of forwards, which in a World Cup final, we found it tough to move around on the field, and they tried to move us around.
“So we’ve played the last 10 times against them, one draw, four losses and five wins for us. Last 10 times since we’ve played them, and it’s been two points, four points, one point. It’s going to be a really, really tight game, people should come and watch.”
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