Springbok great on ‘psychotic’ South African fans, what is ‘unbelievable’ about Irish rugby and his Rassie Erasmus ‘medicine’ after getting call wrong
South Africa and Ireland clash at Rugby World Cup 2023 and, inset, ex-Springbok captain John Smit.
Former Springboks skipper John Smit has shared his thoughts on the feisty South Africa-Ireland rivalry that has developed in recent years.
The retired hooker captained his country to Rugby World Cup success in 2007 at a time when Irish rugby was only starting to fully get to grips with the demands of the professional game.
The outlook, though, is very different 18 years later with the Irish, now coached by Andy Farrell, preparing to take on Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks in Dublin this Saturday.
Ireland go into the match having won four of the last five encounters against the Boks. That run includes drawing the two-match series in South Africa in July 2024 when their paths last crossed.
“It’s said in an absolute positive manner…”
This track record will leave Farrell, who has recalled Andrew Porter, Josh van de Flier, Bundee Aki and Garry Ringrose to this weekend’s starting line-up, with every confidence that his charges have the robustness to overcome the power challenge presented by the Springboks.
Along with England versus the All Blacks and South Africa visiting France, this weekend’s Dublin fixture is amongst the most eagerly anticipated matches of the Autumn Nations Series window, and ex-captain Smit is enjoying the latest chapter in a rivalry that has developed at a rate of knots in recent times.
Appearing on the RTE Rugby Podcast, Smit said: “Rivalries are built around a deep-earned respect for the level of what the opponent brings. That’s for any country. We talk about the rivalries of different generations, but you can always gauge how strong the rivalry is by how much South African fans hate your team. It’s said in an absolute positive manner.
“South African fans are psychotic would probably be a diplomatic way of explaining them. You feel this energy when we are playing against Ireland because every single one of the people who are wearing these green and gold jerseys that are watching their team understands there is a real threat of a team that has been at No.1 numerous times over the last couple of years, has beaten them, has beaten the All Blacks and has won Six Nations.
“So all of that leans into the fact that this has always been a big test the last couple of years and is still going to be a big test. I love watching every country’s response when their national teams don’t quite perform the way they do. You look at the absolute panic and pandemonium in New Zealand right now, it’s almost as if the world is about to end.
“And I saw and read some of the comments around the Irish team after they lost in Chicago (to the All Blacks), and it’s amazing how supporters can go absolutely off our heads every time there is a game we believe we should win.
“We believe I guess, as pundits and supporters, that we should win every weekend, whether we are Irish or New Zealanders or South Africans. So it is that fanaticism that creates these massive rivalries because both sides know they can lose and both sides want the actual test to see how much better they can be.”
Ireland had the edge over South Africa in a Rugby World Cup pool match 26 months ago, winning 13-8 in Paris before the Springboks rebounded in the knockout stages to retain their title while the Irish were sent packing with a quarter-final defeat to the All Blacks.
Before that elimination, Ireland would have been viewed as a serious threat to South Africa’s title retention chances. Their consistency has since slipped a bit, but Smit insisted that they are still viewed as a major challenge heading into the fourth weekend of the November Test window.
“There is definitely a view that sees Ireland as the same threat as they were in the World Cup, specifically playing at home,” he said. “We mentioned something earlier around systems and Irish rugby has got an unbelievable system.
“I’d like to believe South Africa has got a good system, a turntable of talent that comes through the school system and it’s really about how to get the best out of all this talent that comes out and trying not to miss certain players.
“Ireland’s model is brilliant around the four provinces and around how they treat international players from outside of Ireland and limit the amount of guys in each position so that there is always three or four Irish players having the opportunity in each position across the board from one to 15.
“It started a long time ago and it started producing results quite quickly once that system had been in place for a while and it has been producing some results as it has progressed.
“Like with anything, no coach is going to start off a season saying we have four or five really senior guys retire and it is an opportunity this season to blood some of the youngsters in the mould we have been working over the last decade or so.
“It’s almost like the kiss of death when a coach says, ‘Don’t judge me in the next four years, just judge me on a World Cup’. Supporters don’t really buy that.
“Perspective for us as pundits or supporters is around seeing the progression or the success of a model that has been working for so long.
“That is what South Africa sees with Ireland and that is why they remain a threat and that is why Saturday’s game will be such an epic battle and certainly a game that South Africa can lose if they don’t bring their best game forward within those 23 players.
“The model is one of the most successful. It’s super simple and it’s super effective and it certainly benefits Ireland’s national team and it’s one of the few systems where the tail is wagging the dog. Everything is geared towards making the national team stronger.
“We have been trying to get as close to that as possible. It hasn’t always been the case in South Africa, but I genuinely believe we are as close to that as we have ever been. And Ireland has been in that space for a very long time.
“It’s a long, convoluted answer to a question that is simple to answer. There was always going to be two Tests on this end-of-year tour for South Africa that had the potential to derail a season and certainly had the potential to not come out with full marks for the tour.
“The beauty has been South Africa has been able to blood a few youngsters; they have had some challenges on this tour, they have been able to overcome that, but Saturday is certainly going to be a Test.”
Smit, who spoke for the guts of an hour on the show, also confessed how he opposed head coach Erasmus when he returned from Ireland to take charge of the national team with the plan of wanting to be able to pick overseas-based players for the Springboks.
That was an idea that didn’t sit well with the former front-rower, but the amazing level of success experienced in the Erasmus era has forced Smit to accept that his old-school thinking was wrong.
“I have got to take my medicine here because I was on the board of South Africa Rugby for eight years up until March this year and when Rassie came to us as a new coach and asked us to consider allowing players to play overseas, there was an old school me that was against it,” he admitted.
“My initial thoughts were let’s preserve our local competitions. I can remember playing with Gary Teichmann, Mark Andrews, Ollie Le Roux, Adrian Garvey, Robbie Kempson, Andre Joubert and these guys were senior players finishing their careers and I was a youngster. They sort of became mentors.
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“I learnt so many lessons, and so the old school version of me was one of the few people that were against it initially. If I look back now at what Rassie has been able to create, there is a few things that it has done.
“It allows some of our best players to go and play in the best clubs around the world, Japan, France, England, all over the place and learn different tactics, different coaching scenarios and get a much better understanding of the global game and different views.
“There was also a flip side; coaches also have the opportunity to draw some IP from these players and what they are experiencing in this Rassie Erasmus era. But the second thing, which is probably the most important, it takes a massive financial burden off our national body.
“SA Rugby have got less big names to pay for. And what it does is opens up so many more slots in our local competitions for younger players to have exposure… there have been a huge amount of positives.
“There is a negative. If you look at our Currie Cup, it’s definitely not the same competition it was 20, 30 years ago and that is the negative by-product of what this new scenario of picking foreign-based players has done.
“But it’s also become a conduit for younger players. We have seen the average age of our URC and Currie Cup team dropping dramatically.”
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