The acrimony between the two coaches was one of the talking points of the bitterly fought series between the Springboks and the British and Irish Lions in 2021, with the fact that the games were played in front of empty stadiums because of Covid not helping the mood.
The Lions’ Warren Gatland arguably started it by complaining about a hit made by Faf de Klerk in the South Africa A game against his team, as well as Erasmus’ role as a glorified water boy, meaning specifically Erasmus’ proximity to his players and ability to relay messages to them during the game. Unlike soccer, in professional rugby the coaches don’t patrol the touchlines, and are forbidden from going onto the field.
But Erasmus, canny man that he is, saw a loophole - he wasn’t the Bok head coach, Jacques Nienaber was. His position as national director of rugby arguably carried more gravitas, but it was a technicality that could be exploited. Gatland wasn’t happy, just as he wasn’t happy with quite a few things early in the series, and after Gatland started muttering about the appointment of South African Marius Jonker as the TMO for the first test, it is fair to say that Erasmus blew a gasket.
Three and a bit years later the two coaches are squaring up to another once more, this time in very starkly contrasting situations. Erasmus has guided the Boks through a successful year, one where they are certain to end it as the No 1 team on the World Rugby rankings, while Gatland has presided over 11 consecutive defeats since the World Cup and there’s a good chance this will be his last test in charge of Wales.
BOK COACH IS NOT GLOATING
Erasmus though is not gloating. Firstly because he’s been around the block himself enough times as a coach to know how quickly things can swing against you and how fickle and lonely the business of coaching can be. Secondly because he and Gatland have long since buried the hatchet and are now on good terms with each other as respected and well travelled rugby men.
Erasmus said he had caught up with Gatland at a pre-World Cup game between the two teams in August last year (Erasmus said it was Twickenham but it was actually in Cardiff) and they had smoothed things over.
“We had a good chat then about the Lions series (and everything is now fine between us),” said Erasmus.
“Coaching can become lonely. It’s cut-throat. Whenever someone is under the pump, you don’t wish anything bad on that person. I wouldn’t say I would love him to beat us, but I would love Warren to be successful. Although we’ve bumped heads in the past, he’s a rugby man through and through. We’ve had good discussions.
“I have a lot of respect for him and I hope he gets the respect from everyone that he deserves. There certainly won’t be any lack of respect from us towards the Welsh team. We are preparing for the Wales we know.”
SELECTION’S BEAR OUT THE RESPECT
Erasmus illustrated that with his selections for Saturday’s game at the Principality Stadium. Apart from a starting team that has a core of frontline players, including six of the seven backs that did duty in the big win over Argentina that clinched the Castle Lager Rugby Championship at the end of September, Erasmus has chosen a bench with an aggregate of 431 caps between them - and the group includes a debutant in Cameron Hanekom.
Erasmus will recall that while the Boks have won their last two games against Wales, in Cardiff last August and more recently in June at Twickenham, both of those were experimental games. The last time the Boks were in Cardiff at this time of year (2021) it was a closely fought contest, with the Boks only just squeaking to victory.
“We are preparing for the Wales we know. We find them very similar to Argentina in the sense they are almost like South Africans, in terms of working hard and grinding,” said the Bok coach.
“I know their record of losing 11 games on the trot is not great, but whenever we play a team that’s backs to the wall, if I can put it that way, we take ourselves back to just before I took over, when we lost 57-0 to New Zealand (in Albany in 2017). Just a few weeks later we played them in Cape Town in our next game, and we lost by only two points (in a game the Boks could easily have won).
“I just know that Warren is a great coach and I know they have great layers. It’s just not quite clicking there at the moment. But Warren is a guy who has fixed things before. Further than that, I don’t know the Wales setup. Sometimes you just turn it around because players believe in a coach, sometimes you just say the right word and players are going to do it for the coach and the country.”
One thing Erasmus is adamant about - you don’t just become a bad coach overnight, and Gatland’s record, both in his previous stint with Wales and with the Lions after taking over from Ian McGeechan post 2009, tells us he is a good coach.