Springboks: Rassie Erasmus revisits ‘can’t make opinion facts’ scrum spat with Dave Rennie and insists late front row swap ‘wasn’t against laws of the game’
Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus and, inset, his All Blacks counterpart Dave Rennie
Rassie Erasmus has revisited Saturday’s post-match spat with Dave Rennie, insisting that the All Blacks coach can’t try to make opinion facts when talking negatively about the Springboks scrum.
South Africa’s second Test win in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series was marred by a furious Erasmus riposte after he learned via the media that Rennie has accused the Boks of ‘walking around’ at the scrum.
Speaking about the scrum at his post-match media briefing following New Zealand’s 33-26 defeat in Cape Town, Rennie said: “It’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead.”
This allegation was like a red rag to a bull when Erasmus heard about it at his follow-up media briefing at DHL Stadium and he turned the air blue with an X-rated retort where he used the F-word and accused Rennie of talking “nonsense”.
“I’ve been burned for that…”
Fronting the media in Johannesburg two days on from his headline-generating outburst following a match refereed by Australia’s Angus Gardner, Erasmus provided a more measured response when asked for his latest thoughts on the All Blacks boss besmirching the Springboks scrummaging reputation.
Speaking after he announced his matchday 23 for next Saturday’s third Test in Soweto, Erasmus explained that his frustration with Rennie was the New Zealand coach using the media to amplify his criticism of the Boks’ scrum rather than going through the World Rugby protocol for grievances about an opposition team’s play.
“Obviously, we’ve looked at the scrums,” began Erasmus after naming a starting XV where front-rowers Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw were restored to the run-on team following last Saturday’s late decision to start with subs Gerhard Steenekamp, Deon Fourie and Thomas du Toit.
“My frustration was not so much that that’s his opinion, but one can’t make opinion facts and the moment it gets said as a fact, I mean, really, there’s now clear protocols in play. You send five clips into AMS, which is a system, and there you raise your concerns.
“Now if I sit here and I tell you all the time that New Zealand cleaned from the side of a breakdown and the referees must look into that, then for me that’s not the protocols. You’re talking to the referees through the media, and I’ve been burned for that.
“The protocols are clearly in place. You must have a pre-match meeting with the referee with the other coach present and that’s how you raise your things; you put them on the AMS system.
“So, I am going to say it again: after the game, when you guys told me that in the media conference, it’s just frustrating because once you put a narrative out like that, everybody starts focusing on that.
“All media, all podcasts, everybody, and then they’ll start analysing that and then it is a lot of people who is analysing that have got no knowledge about scrums really.
“I myself would not be a person that talks with authority about scrums, but I do know how Daan (Human) coaches the scrums. And we will never ever in our life say let’s walk around the team because that’s not our strength. That’s not how we do this.
“So I’m not frustrated with the fact that Dave wants to get it out. But there’s a lot of things I want to get out about New Zealand, but I only have five clips I can send in post the match. So if I name another four here, it’s against the protocol because the protocol is sending through the AMS.
“So I can guarantee you we don’t want to put more pressure on the referees through the media. If you talk about changing three players before a match, which was tactical, and people say that’s against the laws and against the spirit of the game, surely coming to a press conference and naming things that are out there now, it’s another tactic to do it that way.
“That’s more the frustrating part. I’m friends with him [Rennie], but I understand what he’s trying to do. As long as that doesn’t succeed, but Nika [Amashukeli] is a sharp referee. He comes from Georgia, he knows scrums, he has coached Georgian, he has played rugby himself. He knows how scrums get handled and that was the frustration. [The] Only reason.”
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Amid suggestions that Erasmus’ 11th-hour ploy of promoting Steenekamp, Fourie and Du Toit from the bench to start and instead holding back the originally named starting front row trio of Nche, Marx and Louw was against the spirit of rugby, Erasmus explained: “I see there’s a bit of an issue with that.
“You know, an hour before the match you can give in your team sheet; if it’s within your 23 you can swap the whole bench around and play the other guys, that’s not against the laws of the game.
“For all honesty, we thought it’s going to be a really wet game and I’m serious about that. I mean, there’s no doubt that heavier guys scrum better on heavier fields and lighter guys like hard fields.
“And the front row that we started with, the pitch was nice and hard and was dry, and between Deon and Gerhard and Thomas, Thomas is one of the smallest guys around but certainly Deon and Gerhard are a little bit less bulky than Ox and Wilco and so on.
“So yes, we thought, let’s look at the weather, let’s get to the pitch, let’s see how wet it really is. And when we got there, the pitch was dry and hard and firm, and that’s why we picked it that way, and this weekend we are going to do it the other way around.”
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