Sir Steve Hansen: Rassie Erasmus needs to have ‘honest conversations’ with ageing Springboks
Sir Steve Hansen believes Rassie Erasmus needs to have honest conversations with ageing Springboks players.
Sir Steve Hansen believes that honest conversations need to be had with ageing Springboks players ahead of next year’s Rugby World Cup.
The legendary All Blacks coach says that Rassie Erasmus has several generational players who are nearing the end of their international careers and that tough decisions need to be made before Australia 2027.
Hansen speaks from experience, having been involved in four World Cup campaigns with New Zealand, two as an assistant coach to Sir Graham Henry.
He was tasked with leading the All Blacks’ title defence in 2015 and 2019 and also needed to freshen up the squad during that time, moving on many of the players who won back-to-back tournaments.
Steven Kitshoff’s view and ex-All Blacks boss’ advice
He aired his views on the ageing Springboks squad on a Rugby Unity and For the Love of Rugby SA collaboration podcast where he was joined by former prop Steven Kitshoff and ex-Wallabies head coach Ewen McKenzie.
Kitshoff, who won the 2019 and 2023 World Cups, said that getting through the week’s training is essential for anyone wanting to chase the three-peat. It’s a point that Erasmus and former Bok coach Jacques Nienaber have discussed previously, with the duo learning from the 2011 tournament when several of the more experienced players couldn’t do that.
“There is still a full URC season that needs to be played and plenty of club games before they even go to the World Cup. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how these guys get through, especially the older guys,” Kitshoff said.
“If they get through it, if they get managed well, for me personally you don’t want to take a squad to the World Cup that’s a bit on the older side and can’t get through a Monday-Tuesday training block, so it will be interesting to see how they get managed, how their bodies feel by then, but I can’t see much rugby for them after that because they’ve been in the Springboks squad for over a decade.”
Hansen agreed with the former front rower and suggested that Erasmus should have honest and open conversations with some of the older players to gauge their hunger and willingness to put in the hard yards.
“We had a group of players heading into 2015 who were getting on the older side, and we had a discussion one by one with them about what they controlled,” Hansen said.
“They were the only person who could tell you if they still had the desire, the genuine desire to do the work from Sunday to Friday – Saturday is always the fun time; that’s when everyone can all still be playing if we could do that.
“Obviously, Sunday to Friday is where the hard work gets done. So if your player can have a think about that, then come back and look you in the eye and say, ‘I still have the desire, I still want to be here’, then your process is all about performance. As the coach, you’re guiding him on his performance like you’re having honest conversations. Is the performance good enough? Yes, it is. Carry on. If it’s not, we’ll discuss it, and then we’ll have to make decisions if we can’t fix it. But first and foremost, they have to have the desire.”
Sir Steve Hansen: We are talking about generational players
The 2015 World Cup-winning coach understands why Erasmus would be reluctant to filter out some of the experienced players like Jesse Kriel, Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Damian de Allende, Pieter-Steph du Toit and so on, stating that they are ‘generational players’.
However, he added that some might even take the decision out of the head coach’s hands by admitting that they don’t have enough left in the tank to continue. If they do that, he believes that there is a right way to exit them out of the set-up.
“The guys you’re talking about are generational players for South Africa, and they’re guys that you don’t want to let go because they bring so much with them,” he explained.
“However, if he has the conversation, then there might be one or two that say, ‘Look, I don’t I just can’t do it anymore,’ and that’s fine; they’re putting the team first.
“They’re brave enough to tell you. So you exit them out of the team in a way that they deserve to be exited out because they’re champion players. But if they still have that desire, they’ll front up, and they’ll play well.
“Then your job is to make sure that they are fresh enough to be able to do that.”
Contrasting view from Ewen McKenzie
Meanwhile, McKenzie took a slightly contrasting view to Hansen, considering his experience with the Wallabies. Australia doesn’t boast the same kind of strength in depth that the Springboks and All Blacks do, and keeping that kind of experience in the squad could be crucial.
He suggests that a lighter training load for some of the older members of the squad could be a way of keeping them fresh for the tournament but at the same time was wary of having too many older players in the team – learning from his experiences as a player.
“There’s been lots of different protocols and a lot of things where they’ve been rested for games. I’ve tended to take the approach of resting them from training,” McKenzie explained.
“In other words, the bit that they enjoy is playing the game. So if you can manage their training load, then that’s one way of managing their workload in total. That probably goes contrary to what Steve’s talking about in some sense, but it does depend on the individual.
“Everyone’s done it differently. It also depends on your depth and what other options you’ve got. There are some countries that have just got a team, and that’s it. So, you’re going to be more tolerant if you’ve got extraordinary depth that makes it a different beast. I just noticed on the weekend that France have now, for the first time ever have got 33 protected players in this in the Top 14. So they’re basically having a weekend off a month up until the World Cup and then also only going to play nine Tests or something like that in total.
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“So it’s up to the coach then to manage which Test they are, so there’s a bit of a trade-off there. So France are trying to do something that they’ve never done before. So everyone’s got their ideas and thoughts about it. I think Steve is right; you’ve got to trust the player if they want to do the work to be there. That’s the critical part.
“We went to the 95 World Cup as Australia, and we were an older team; we’d won a World Cup and then got beaten up after that by everyone. We managed to win games, but it was a long haul defending that title, and we got to the 1995 World Cup; we were all carrying injuries and things like that, thought we could do it, and we couldn’t. We didn’t get past the quarters. So you’ve got to be cautious of that, and that’s up to the coach to be able to read where players are at.”
Strength and conditioning coach is crucial
Hansen added that having a good strength and conditioning coach is crucial, as they need to understand the needs of the individual and not the collective.
“The other thing is your head of SNC is really important. He has got to have an understanding of each individual rather than taking a mass approach,” he said.
“So, there’ll be some guys that they’ll do more training off their feet than on their feet. The older locks, do you have to do every line out? No, you don’t. So let’s take away some of the jumping load during the week.
“You don’t de-train them, but what you do is you can look after them in the areas where your joints and things blow up when you get old, so put them on a bike; don’t do the jumping today, whatever it might be.”
