We had to earn respect back from refs – Rassie

SA Rugby’s Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus believes his side had to “earn the respect” back from referees after the now-infamous video during the British and Irish Lions tour.

Erasmus, who is with coach Jacques Nienaber guiding the Bok team’s defence of their Rugby World Cup title and face a tough quarterfinal outing against hosts France in Paris on Sunday night, spoke at length about how the Boks have worked on their discipline.

They remain the only team in the World Cup not to have received a yellow or red card during pool phase play and are the team with the fourth lowest penalty count in the tournament.

Erasmus was banned for two months by World Rugby following the video and then given a two-match suspension last year when he tweeted about match officials, with former referee Nigel Owens publicly calling him out for it.

Erasmus asked Owens to assist the Boks in the build-up to the World Cup and while he declined the offer, Erasmus has spoken at length to him to get on the right side of referees again.

On Tuesday Rassie admitted the Boks “got it wrong” in the way they dealt with refs and made it a point to try and win back the “respect” of referees going into the World Cup.

"For us the first word is respect. I think definitely we got it wrong in stages especially when we had the year off with Covid and we went into the Lions series,” he said at the media conference at Roland Garos.

“The levels of communication was really tough - even when we played our 100th game against New Zealand we were in a bubble in Australia - World Rugby couldn't be there and the Lions series they couldn't be there because of Covid. So it was tough to get better and better communication and I guess on both sides it led to frustration.”

Erasmus explained how a call to Owens to try and get the Boks on the right side of the law was the beginning point.

"Last year I had a phone call with [former referee] Nigel Owens and I said 'we really want to get this right, we don't want people not to like us. That is not the reason for us, maybe sometimes having differences and doing things in a way just to get a response.'

“We wanted to know how things worked and I must say what we learned from that conversation is that no matter if we are right the respect you show to the referee you will get back from that referee, even if he makes mistakes or you make mistakes.

“We also had to adapt our game a little bit. If you only rely on maul, it is difficult to referee a maul. If you only rely on a scrum, it's difficult to referee a scrum.

“I'll be honest with you, there was one tweet I tweeted especially after the France game [in 2022], I was quite honest and serious about it. We had to change our game to make it easier for referees. So it's not always this [crunch] thing to work out who is or isn't dominant. The players also worked hard on level change [on tackles].

"So yes no cards, I think we are fourth lowest for penalty count. We had to earn it back, we had to earn the respect back and I think it is showing at this stage that it works both ways."

The Boks will be hoping that Ben O’Keefe, who will referee Sunday’s match, gives them a fair shake when it comes to the game, especially with hosts France being favourites and the majority of the 80 000 crowd baying for them as their 16th man on the field.