Rassie rant: Ex-All Black claims Erasmus ‘does these things that are probably not acceptable’ but admits ‘he’s looking after his players and they’d die for him’
Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus and, inset, All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie
Former All Black Ant Strachan has weighed in on the debate over Rassie Erasmus’ F-bomb media appearance following the second Test in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry.
Having lost the opener 33-16 in Johannesburg, the Springboks levelled the series at one-all with their 33-26 win in Cape Town. However, relations in the four-Test challenge took a turn for the worse at the post-game media conference when the South African head coach heard that his New Zealand counterpart Dave Rennie had alleged skullduggery at the scrum.
Asked how he felt the All Blacks scrum had fared at the DHL Stadium following a torrid time for most of the previous week’s encounter at Ellis Park, Rennie claimed: “The scrums were better. Angus (Gardner, the referee) was pretty strong around setting a mark and then trying to keep the hookers in the same sort of spacing, and if the Springboks moved across further left, then he stopped them. We’ll give a bit of feedback around that.
“It’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead. So, a couple of little technical things that we’ll share again, but look, I thought in the end, the scrums, both teams were able to play off them, and so Angus did a reasonable job there.”
“Don’t come with that nonsense…”
When this allegation was put to Erasmus at his media appearance, the Springboks boss bristled. “We’ve been playing as a pack of these guys together, so it’s the first time ever in history that people are talking about us walking around,” he fumed.
“So why would we all of a sudden walk around in this? You know, the first six scrums New Zealand had, every single one collapsed and it was reset, reset, reset, reset. So why is it only on their ball that the scrum collapsed every single time?
“So, I don’t come with that nonsense and say, ‘we’re walking around,’ and you try and put things out in the media. I mean, if I’m starting to put things out, the last lineout was skewed and we contested it. I’m not going to moan my ass off about that.
“So, you know, if he wants to start moaning about stuff like that, then they are under pressure because last week we didn’t moan after there was clearly head contacts a lot of time and today [Saturday] in the first 40 there was four head contacts and nothing was done about it and then Lood [de Jager] gets the first one [a yellow card].
“So, the moment we start moaning, and if you’re only going to clip the part I said now at the end, it’s going to be a hell of a headline, but please don’t do it; put the whole thing that I’m answering.
“Don’t try and convince the people through the media because that was what happened in the first week; they tried to convince the people in the media that we are slowing the game down and we’re not.
“So, if the referees get caught up by that, then there’s obviously a plan to get that message out and then we’re not going to stay quiet and just say, ‘Yeah, you’re right. We’re walking around’. We’re not f***ing walking around. We’re scrumming through. So, you know, we have never ever, ever been accused of walking around. So, I don’t understand it.”
Appearing on the DSPN Rugby show on YouTube on Sunday, Strachan, who played for the All Blacks in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final versus the Springboks, reckoned: “He [Erasmus] does these things that are probably not acceptable, but it’s all theatre, it is around narrative, but at the end of the day, he’s looking after his players and they’d die for him and it’s in all those technical areas of the game.
“I mean, I don’t know how they’re going to fix the scrum to be fair because it’s a powerhouse strength from one team and a team that’s just struggling and doing their best to get parity, but because that that is their strength, they’ll just always keep testing whatever referees out there, they’re going to keep testing them for the duration of a game.
“And it’s hard for the referees to get it right because there are so many nuances around the scrum. But at least we launched a lot from the scrum last night. We did some really good stuff from the scrum, and of course we didn’t do that at Ellis Park for the best part of 56 minutes. So, I thought that was a pleasing aspect for the All Blacks.”
Strachan was joined on the show by Gregor Paul, the New Zealand Herald rugby correspondent, who was also asked about the scrum and Erasmus’ fiery post-game rant. “It [the scrum] is clearly an issue for fans because watching guys reset scrums for minutes at a time is not what people have paid their money to watch.
“That’s not the product that anyone wants to see, so there’s a problem that needs to be fixed. No one wants to see that again. I enjoyed the scrummaging contest at Ellis Park greatly because we just saw them go against each other, so we need to get to that point next week where they’re actually having a contest more regularly.
“There’s a lot of faffing around about brake foot and technical stuff that’s going to bore the shit out of your listeners, so we’re not going to go there. In terms of the kind of media clash, look, Rassie fired up.
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“He was quite calm, he was quite gracious, he was quite humble and then boom, he’s off. He’s making a point, a poorly made point about how they [the Springboks] are not whinging, about there were four head contacts but we’re not whinging about that and we didn’t f***in walk around.
“So, he’s created an issue; he’s created headlines around the scrum that wasn’t actually really a factor in determining the outcome of the game, but he’s made it that way by doing what he’s done.
“If I was the All Blacks, I’d just let that one go and World Rugby probably need to have a word with Rassie about his language because I don’t think that’s okay.”
