Rassie Erasmus’ influence at key World Rugby meeting revealed as South Africa and France ‘protect rugby’s identity’
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and World Rugby chair Brett Robinson.
Rassie Erasmus and South Africa played a key role in ‘protecting rugby’s identity’ during World Rugby’s Shape of the Game conference, according to a report.
Significant figures from around the globe met in London last week to discuss the sport’s future with a variety of topics on the table.
Rugby’s laws are always central in any debate with World Rugby doing plenty of tinkering over the past few years.
There has been a desire, generally driven by Australia and New Zealand, to speed up the game and reduce the impact of the scrum.
South Africa has pushed back on the latter, however, and according to L’Equipe last week they joined forces with France to make sure union’s fundamentals are protected.
Rapport have confirmed that the two giants of the sport banded together in order to stop Australia and New Zealand getting their way with the set-piece.
Significant South African preparation
The report states that the back-to-back world champions, who were led by Erasmus, Jaco Peyper, Rian Oberholzer, Dave Wessels and Felix Jones, worked with “other countries such as France for three months” in preparation for this conference.
“South Africa just wanted rugby to remain rugby and nothing else,” a source told Rapport.
“Just because one or two other countries compete with the AFL and rugby league doesn’t mean everyone has to.
“South Africa wants rugby to remain a sport for all sizes and heights. The scrums and drives make rugby unique compared to other codes.
“This is where South Africa has already built up a gene pool.”
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World Rugby confirmed in the aftermath of the meeting that there would be no changes to the laws and that everyone was on the same page, but the work South Africa and France did might have had something to do with that.
One of the French representatives, FFR head of referees Mathieu Raynal, declared that he was “satisfied” with the outcome having previously stated his concern that Australia and New Zealand wanted to ‘turn scrums into mauls’.
“South Africa and France have worked well together,” the source said.
“There was previously a lot of momentum to make large-scale changes to rugby, but they should do that in sevens, for example.
“They shouldn’t be messing with 15-man rugby. South Africa was successful in helping to protect rugby’s identity at the conference.
“It’s gratifying that people finally want to keep rugby rugby after there was good momentum to make big changes.”
‘Couldn’t get its way with everything’
It is no surprise that South Africa have been doing their due diligence having released a three-part special on YouTube a month prior to the World Rugby conference.
The short series was titled ‘The Shape of the Game’ and featured key members of the Springboks coaching staff, headed by Erasmus and including Jones and Peyper, who discussed the state of the sport and its laws.
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While the content was interesting in itself, it could have been used as a precursor to this event as a smart way to air their views, which was backed by data, before they locked horns with the scrum detractors.
The source did add that South Africa “couldn’t get its way with everything”, but they can still be pleased with the outcome.
