Rassie didn’t want to irritate All Blacks, he wanted to scare them

The Springbok plan in the test match that may have been the most important stepping stone to South Africa’s rise to glory under Rassie Erasmus outside of the Rugby World Cup went a lot further than the previous ploy of trying to get under the All Black skin. It was all about getting them to feel genuine fear.

DStv Premium subscribers - watch the episode here on DStv Now . . .

That was one of the most interesting facets of the Erasmus masterplan to emerge from the revelatory first episode of the five part documentary aired for the first time on Sunday night. In Chasing the Sun, we get a behind the scenes look at how Erasmus motivated his men before the 2018 Castle Lager Rugby Championship test against New Zealand in Wellington.

“It is kak to say that we’ve got nothing to lose, because we’ve got a lot to lose, but we’ve also got everything to gain from this test match,” said Erasmus in an address to his forwards in the build-up to the game.

“RG (Snyman), if you’ve ever had a test match where the people can say, as they always do, that you must leave nothing out there on the field, this is it… You are going to have to be so f….. physical out there. You don’t want them to be upset, you want them to be afraid. Ricking and plicking them (niggling), showing them the finger, that upsets them.

“(But) cleaning a guy out in the ruck (with maximum force) and just looking at him and laughing at him, that puts fear into them.”

CROSS-ROADS IN RASSIE’S CAREER

Erasmus was talking at a time which he looks back at as a cross-roads in his career with the Boks. In fact it isn’t a retrospective thought that came to him in looking back over his 18 months in charge before the team went to Japan to contest the Webb Ellis Cup, it was something he says he knew at the time.

The Boks had lost two games in a row, with the unexpected defeat to Argentina in Argentina being followed by a narrow loss in the away Championship game against Australia.

“We always knew when we went into the job that if we lost three games in a row that would be when the pressure would really come on so it was a huge test for us,” said defence coach Jacques Nienaber, who is now the Bok coach with Erasmus having chosen to focus on his role as national director of rugby.

Turning the Boks around psychologically from where they were when they lost 57-0 to the All Blacks in Albany in 2017 was always a central part of the Bok coaching plan, and Nienaber didn’t mind irritating the players with his constant reminders of that game in the build-up to what both he and Erasmus saw as a must-win clash at the Westpac Stadium.

NIENABER DIDN’T MIND INCENSING EBEN

Eben Etzebeth captained the Boks in Albany. After the game he had told the rest of the players “This can never happen again”. He described it in Chasing the Sun as perhaps the worst day of his life. So he hardly needed reminding of it, but Nienaber reminded him, constantly.

“When Jacques Nienaber was drilling us he kept telling us we were 57 points behind New Zealand,” recalled Etzebeth.“He kept on hammering that into our heads. It was like a scab being picked off the whole time, and one day I got so upset with him. He said I am glad you getting upset with me, I hope everyone is getting upset with me, because it must hurt.”

For Erasmus, that Wellington wasn’t just another match. He’d made no secret of the fact he was putting all his eggs in one basket. He’d identified before the international season started that winning against the All Blacks in New Zealand would define his first year as Bok coach and give them the belief that they needed to win the World Cup the following year.

While it seemed to the rest of us that Erasmus was exaggerating when he said before the Wellington game that it would be the end of him as Bok coach if the team didn’t win, for him it was the reality. He has never been one to shy from hard truths, and he knew it would be hard for him to get the players to believe if they didn’t win.

“If we didn’t win that match it would mean our plan didn’t work,” he said. “I said to the guys, as we were in that team room, guys imagine if this was the World Cup final. It’s an important game and we have to win it. We are going to have to feel like it is all or nothing.”

A WELL THOUGHT OUT PLAN THAT CAME TOGETHER

But it wasn’t just all physicality and testosterone that Erasmus was preaching. He is recognised as one of the sport’s master tacticians, he is an expert analyser of the opposition. And that was something that Bok fullback Willie le Roux recalls him getting spot-on.

“I remember Rassie and Jacques being in our heads the whole week, they were telling us that the All Blacks like to throw in quickly and that we mustn’t for one second relax when we saw the ball go out,” recalled Le Roux in the 45 minute first episode aired on M-Net on Sunday night.

“They said that could be the defining moment of the game, we must be alert to it.”

Le Roux’s moment came when Jordie Barrett was the recipient of a quick and wild lineout throw when the All Blacks were ahead in the first half. The fullback read it perfectly and scored a try that was widely regarded afterwards as the turning point in a game that the Kiwis had dominated in the opening phases.

But as the New Zealand television commentators saw it, it was not just Le Roux who read the All Black play: “There were about four Springboks who read it and were chasing it.”

The try brought the teams level at 12-all, and it changed the whole energy of the game - and maybe the course of Erasmus’ Bok coaching career.

“I also started to believe after that win, maybe I also didn’t believe before that,” admits Erasmus.

“We only managed a 50 percent success rate in that first year, but we beat New Zealand in New Zealand. That was the only initial target. We knew that from there we could set other targets. Because we believe now.”

A MIRACULOUS BUT NECESSARY TURN-AROUND

The injection of belief that the Wellington win brought has to be seen in the context of where the Boks were the year before. In Chasing the Sun, they tell it straight, there’s none of the media speak that is so often employed by top sportsmen to varnish what they say.

“After that loss (the 57-0 in Albany) I had good friends coming to me and saying ‘Brother, you guys are making it very difficult to support you’.”

Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira was so down after both the 57-15 defeat in Durban in 2016 and the 57-0 thrashing that followed it that he considered calling time on his career.

“You had people coming up to you in the streets. It was embarrassing. I started to think it was perhaps time for me to move on.”

Jurie Roux, the SA Rugby chief executive, spoke about how the main Springbok sponsor decided to walk away, and the difficulties that were faced on many different levels, including “the political fight, and the media fight.” ?He’d always believed in Erasmus, and had no doubt that in the former manager of rugby at Saru he had the man who could turn Bok rugby around from those dark days.

“The plan (for resurrection) was simple, there was only one guy, and he should never have left,” said Roux.

He enlisted the help of Supersport, major stakeholders in South African rugby as the broadcaster, and lured Erasmus back. For Erasmus’ part, the decision to return from Munster, where he had made his home and was enjoying life, was made easier by the fact that he just couldn’t bear to see the Boks struggling. He knew that if he didn’t return when he did, Bok rugby would be beyond repair.

“I was in the stands at the Aviva Stadium, with Jacques and as a fan for the first time in years, when we lost 38-3 to Ireland,” says Erasmus. “That was the day I decided. I was coaching in Ireland and felt we couldn’t be losing to a nation with so many few players than we had as a nation.”