Advertisement

Rassie touches on Bok fans' basic instinct

rugby12 February 2020 07:04| © SuperSport
By:Johan Coetzee
Share
article image

SuperWrap - week 2, 2020

She insists it happened without her knowledge, but she only told the world that after gracefully accepting her MTV awards for “best actress” and “most desirable female”.

She became famous for inadvertently exposing too much of herself to an audience that was just a tad too eager, and we may just have ourselves a Springbok coach currently who is following that pattern to a tee.

Her name is Sharon Stone and it all happened in a 1992 film called Basic Instinct. His name is Rassie Erasmus and he is showing intimate parts of an institution we all hold faithfully dear. Our privates are being shared openly and in almost every public space you can think of.

In both cases the supposedly innocent exposés caused me to be simultaneously thrilled and scared, and in equal measure.

As we did as teenagers back in the day, we all need to sit down now and give this whole thing a proper think-through. Let’s take a deep breath and perhaps pour ourselves a little something.

Ok, so for those of you who were forced under a rock by our beloved Eskom over the weekend, your favourite former Bok coach responded to reports in this week’s Sunday press that claimed he was in talks with the Rugby Football Union about taking over from the beleaguered England coach Eddie Jones in the not too distant future.

He responded not through conventional channels, but by joining the often-controversial pulpit called Twitter – and mere seconds after he first logged in, he shared videos of him talking to his Springbok players in a setting that is (and always has been) off limits to anyone who wasn’t already present in the room.

The footage instantaneously grips. Not a lot of average Springbok fans looked at it and didn’t immediately pinch themselves for being allowed to be a fly on the wall.

Too many average Springbok fans also looked at those clips and asked themselves: hey, isn’t this too good to be true?

That is a valid question, but it is also one we should completely ignore. Any Mavericks regular will tell you that asking about your entertainer’s motives is a sure way of spoiling a night out.

We have to work from the assumption that Rassie’s intentions are pure – all we can really do is to ask ourselves this: what is the worst that can happen?

The answer can be scary if you give yourself a second to think about it.

Allow me to play the role of the girlfriend who stumbled across unsavoury suggestions for boys night activities on one of your naughtier whatsapp groups.

“No way you’re doing this,” I’ll say. “If you cheaply see these things that are supposed to be sacred and intimate too often, you’ll lose all the respect you had for it in the first place”. You’ll nod, but not a word would have sunk in.

“And what about trust?” I’ll continue my rant. “Would you trust me if I shared the parts of me that you hold dear with anyone who bothers to look? Even to people you dislike? Does respect not go hand-in-hand with trust?” You’ll nod, but this time you’ll start shifting uncomfortably on the sofa.

“If nothing is sacred in life, then nothing can hold any emotional value. Do you really not want to feel anything for these things you claim to love? Isn’t it in your own interest if some cows are just left to stay holy?” If you have any heart you’ll be busy responding to those whatsapps by fibbing about some prior engagement.

Now let’s apply that preaching to rugby.

Is it possible that if we are granted free access to the innermost thoughts of the Springbok dressing room it can erode away the respect and love we have for the team? Won’t it just lose its mystique? If the keepers of those special moments share them with no regard for who is looking, can we trust them?

We can answer our first question quite definitively. Becoming too familiar with what happens behind closed doors is the worst thing that can happen to us as a result of Rassie’s peep-shows.

But that leads us to a new question: how likely is that worst thing to actually happen? Only Rassie (and those that are in on his sudden appearance on twitter) will know for sure.

Only Rassie knows what he is not willing to make public - and it is the content he is holding back that will ultimately decide how this apparent free-for-all spectacle is remembered, especially by those who were present when the videos were taken.

Only Rassie knows how much more he is planning on showing us - and it is the amount of footage that is ultimately released (in whatever form) that will decide how much value we attach to any one bit of it.

What we know is that Rassie Erasmus is not the type of person that leaves anything to chance.

Sharon Stone is still famous for once showing us just enough skin to get us all to rent her movie. Our former coach can be as well. He is most probably just copying her to a tee.

--------------

Let’s have a look at what happened elsewhere in the world of rugby…

--------------

TRY OF THE WEEK:

- see top of the page . . .

--------------

BEST OF TWITTER:


What was Piet van Zyl doing in Dunedin?

-------


One can only hope.

-------


Is there anything the great Schalk Burger cannot do better than anyone else?

-------


Welcome to the land of chops and wors, Jamie.

--------------

Rasta’s reprieve

Those of you who managed to stay up to the wee hours of Sunday morning to watch the Jaguares play the Hurricanes would have seen something heart-warming.

South African referee Rasta Rasivhenge had trouble identifying a ball under a pile of bodies on the Jaguares’ line. Instead of sending it upstairs for a guess, he decided to just ask the Hurricanes TJ Perenara straight up if he scored the try.

“Did you get it, TJ?” asked Rasta. The Hurricanes skipper replied “No.”

Rasivhenge was only too pleased. "Thanks for your honesty TJ … that's good leadership by you, thank you very much."

This reminded us of the story of two platteland teams who were tied 0-0 right at the end of their game. One of the sides broke free, but no-one could really see if a try was scored in the dust-cloud that was kicked up by the commotion.

After giving it some thought the referee decided on a 2-0 final scoreline. “Listen, I can’t tell you if that try was scored, but I am certain that there was nothing wrong with the conversion.”

Marler-vellous

We picked up on a lovely anecdote this week about how Joe Marler reacted after his England side went down to France in the Six Nations opener.

English rugby writer Paul Eddison tells us that after the match Marler immediately went to the French coaching team to talk to them about his opposing tighthead Mohamed Haouas, who was on debut.

Afterwards Marler went to the French dressing room to have a beer with Haouas and present him with his match jersey. Haouas wanted to return the favour, but Marler would have none of it.

"It's the jersey from your first cap, you shouldn't swap it or give it to anyone," said the burly prop.

Isn’t it good to see that rugby can still sometimes be a gentleman’s sport?

Advertisement