WE THOUGHT HE’D LOST IT
When told an hour ahead of kick-off that Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus was starting the second Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry test against the All Blacks with his second-choice front row, there was widespread confusion around the press area at the DHL Stadium.
What was the coach up to now? If Johan Grobbelaar was packing down in the front row, we might have been less stunned by the announcement that came by way of a team sheet that was distributed. At least Grobbelaar plays all his rugby at hooker. Even Jan-Hendrik Wessels, although also a loosehead prop, has now done a lot of duty at hooker.
But Deon Fourie, freak though the soon to be 40 year old undeniably is, hadn’t played at hooker since the 2023 World Cup final, which he played 77 minutes of due to the early injury to Bongi Mbonambi. Fourie did end up as the de facto on-field captain in that momentous game, but it was nearly three years ago, and while there has been talk of him being a backup hooker at the Stormers and has trained there, he hasn’t seen much action there, and him playing hooker is low down on coach John Dobson’s list of options. Chiefly because he knows Fourie doesn’t really want to play there.
But when his country needs him, Fourie is available to do anything, and it was a case of once more into the breach for the likeable but immensely tough ‘Brannas’. Neither did he let his country down, with the nerves of those who doubted the selection quickly quelled when he hit target with the first lineout throw and the Bok pack made a massive statement with an early drive.
He featured in the buildup to Jesse Kriel’s second-minute try. It was clear that Erasmus’ plan was that he would play probably around 30 minutes - in the end it was just a bit more than that - and in that period, far from the Boks possibly paying for the selection, as they did when Joseph Dweba was selected to start ahead of Malcolm Marx against the All Blacks in 2022, the Boks controlled the game and led.
The move didn’t have the full intended impact later in the game as referee Angus Gardner abdicated when it came to reffing the scrums. But full marks for Fourie, who in the game became the oldest ever player to pull on the Bok jersey (he turns 40 towards the end of September), and once again what appeared a left-field selection from Rassie worked.
MAD COACHES DISEASE
Mad Coaches Disease, or MCD, was the title I gave the way some past Springbok coaches have completely lost the plot, or veered away from their true natures and the strengths that got them the Bok job in the first place, once the pressure is on. That was in a newspaper article I wrote in 2006, when Jake White was showing bad signs of MCD around the time his team was blown away 49-0 by the Wallabies in Brisbane, and it became the subject of a book I subsequently wrote on the post-isolation Bok coaches titled ‘The Poisoned Chalice’.
It was suggested to me in a WhatsApp message from someone who works in rugby once the news of Rassie’s selection had spread around the country that I should know what Rassie’s problem was, as I had coined the phrase - Mad Coaches Disease. And with many questioning whether Rassie was feeling the pressure during the week building up to the game, it wasn’t something that was completely beyond the realms of possibility. Maybe Rassie had MCD.
But instead of MCD, it turned out that Rassie, being the genius that he is, had Mad Genius Disease. I keep the word ‘mad’ there because many geniuses are borderline mad, and while the ploy worked, it was still an incredibly bold thing to do, and there is still the question lingering of whether it was completely necessary. Just like the 7:1 bench split in the last World Cup final, it could easily have backfired, and then Rassie would have made the noose for his own neck.
Yet once he explained it afterwards, the plan made complete sense. The same person who messaged me about MCD used the word genius when I explained what Rassie had said in the post-match press conference. And his ability and willingness to think out of the box and go where no other coach would does make him a genius. He’s nothing short of that.
WELCOME TO THE REALITY THAT RUGBY IS NOW 23 V 23
Quite predictably, Rassie did get some criticism for the left-field late change from sections of the overseas media. There were suggestions, at least in some of the headlines, that keeping his starting team under wraps until just before the game, or changing it so late, was outside of the spirit of the game.
That’s just bollocks and the typical kind of click-bait, feeding on the overseas anathema to everything Rassie does, regardless of what it is, that has become a trend. The reality is that modern rugby is played between two squads of 23, and there shouldn’t be any big set-in-stone distinction in who starts and who finishes.
Eddie Jones, when he was England coach, hosted a press conference I was at during the 2019 World Cup where, in defending a selection he had made in moving someone from the starting team to the bench (from memory it was George Ford), came up with a typically sarcastic response to questions about it from English media people who assumed the player had been dropped.
“Welcome to the 21st Century guys, that’s rugby now, it is a game of 23 versus 23,” said Jones.
I am not sure all the rugby media get what Jones was saying, but it is the truth. A coach should be perfectly entitled to swap members of his published “impact squad”, as some now call the replacements, with players in the starting team and vice versa.
I strongly suspect Rassie had the change in mind long before the day of the game, but it shouldn’t matter - his explanation that the changing weather forecast, which changed his need for a heavier front row on a potentially heavier, wet field for a lighter and more mobile starting front row, made perfect sense. It was a massive risk in terms of what he had to lose if it didn’t work, but it did make sense.
Had he called in players who were not in the published squad, then the critics might have a point. What is the relevance of any team announcement press conference then if you are just going to bring in players from outside on match day or just before it. That would make nonsense of Rassie’s trend of announcing as early as possible in the week, as the whole exercise would be rendered meaningless.
But Gerhard Steenekamp, Deon Fourie and Thomas du Toit were in the match-day 23, and were down to play. Why should it be dictated to a coach when those selected players should play? If replacements are going to be made during a game, why can’t they be made just before the game?
Let’s imagine for a moment that match day in Cape Town dawned very wet, like the day the Boks played the 2023 World Cup semifinal against England in Paris, and that Manie Libbok was written down as the Bok starting flyhalf when, as was the case then, the more wet-weather specialist Handre Pollard was available.
Would it not just be logical for the coach, recognising that the weather conditions didn’t fit with his selection, to change his team at the 11th hour and start with the player who is more adept at wet weather rugby? Surely the answer is obvious.
RASSIE’S LITTLE OUTBURST WAS ALWAYS COMING
There were several expletives in Rassie’s response at the post-match press conference once he was asked about All Black coach Dave Rennie’s media comments directed at influencing the way referees and World Rugby’s adjudicate on matters relating to the scrum. Those of us who watched Chasing the Sun will know already that Rassie can swear when he’s angry, and I don’t blame him at all for now introducing that colourful language to a more formal press conference.
He was completely right when he said that there’s never been an issue with the Bok scrum, no “fxxxx allegations of walking around”, which is more or less what he said, in his previous seven years involved with the Boks either as head coach or director of rugby. And he was also on the money with his insinuation that Australian referee Angus Gardner had abdicated his responsibility when it came to making calls at scrum time.
Gardner’s apparent lack of backbone removed the scrum from the Boks’ arsenal, which made their win over the All Blacks in the second test even more noteworthy. But it should not just be passed over for the Kiwi drive to negate the impact of the scrum, something that was apparently opposed by other nations at the last Shape of the Game conference, is a threat to something that is the very lifeblood of rugby.
If New Zealanders want a game shorn of scrums such a sport does exist. It’s called Rugby League. Scrums are not just a means to restart a game, they are the very ethos of what rugby is. Or they at least that is the case is most other parts of the world. If you don’t like it, play League instead.
COLLAPSED SCRUMS NOT PENALISED TAKE TIME OUT OF THE GAME
So early on in another spellbinding test match we saw a sequence of collapsed scrums. The referee was reluctant to signal a penalty, probably because of all the chatter beforehand, but here’s a question - if collapsed scrums don’t get penalised, which is the usual outcome early in games, at least before all the chatter about the legality of the Bok scrum started, surely it takes time out of the game? Which is exactly the thing the people complaining about don’t want.
It all reminds me of a phrase once written by the late great former Afrikaans radio and television commentator Gerhard Viviers - “Wen kon you nie” (Sometimes you just couldn’t win).
THE TALK OF RESPECT IS NOT JUST TALK
Sitting watching the player and coach interactions after the final whistle had sounded on the Boks’ 33-26 win that drew them level in the RGR series was quite a joyous experience. For it showed that all the hype and talk about their being great respect between the nations and teams and between the two groups of players was much more than that. It is real.
Seeing Bok captain Siya Kolisi, and how did he underline just how valuable he remains to Bok rugby and to this country with his contribution to the Bok turnaround, hugging what quite clearly was the New Zealand captain Ardie Savea’s children and wife, and the enthusiasm with which he embraced him and him them, almost brought tears to my eyes.
And while there has been a war of words between the coaches off the field, it was also notable how many Bok players stopped for a chat with the All Black coach Dave Rennie.
Last Tuesday the spirit of rugby was very much evident in the minutes after the All Blacks had completed their come from behind win over the Lions at Ellis Park, with the players from both team linking up in prayer and sworn adversaries on the field a few minutes earlier embracing each other and swapping jerseys.
It was special to watch from the vantage point of the Ellis Park press box and encouraging to see the evidence that while we may now be three decades into the professional era the old ways haven’t been abandoned completely. At least not when these two nations play each other.
SET FOR AN EXCITING CONCLUSION
I have just landed back in Johannesburg as I write this. Lanseria actually. Cape town airport was a nightmare early in the morning. Queues that went right around the departure terminal. Must be the rugby. But somehow we took off more or less on time and landed almost exactly on time. 8.24am.
Rassie’s team announcement press conference is in a few hours. It will set the tone for another interesting week. One building up to a test match at Soccer City that if it is anything like the other two, will live up to the billing of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry. It’s just a pity it ends there for those of us South Africans eager to be part of it all. I like the four test concept, just not the decision to play the last one in Baltimore.