How coaching was thrust upon Lions SRC coach Sean Erasmus

The story of how Sean Erasmus – the Xerox Golden Lions’ new head coach in the SuperSport Rugby Challenge – got his first coaching job is a case of being at the right place at the wrong time.

“After I got my (back) injury in 1999-2000 things weren't working out and I had to make ends meet," Erasmus tells the story. “Harlequins Club in the Bluff in Durban is right next to this small school called Grosvenor Boys. I walked in there sort of looking for a job and I bumped into an irate person that was unhappy about something or the other and there was an argument going on.

"He said to me: ‘Can I help you?’ and I told him I was looking for a little coaching job to make ends meet. He slammed a whistle on my chest and said: 'Congrats, you're the new first team coach!' I told him I didn't have to start with the firsts and asked him when I started. He looked at his watch and said: ‘In about two hours' time..’"

A RESULTS MAN

Erasmus's immediate results at the school – which would generally be a trait pretty much everywhere he turned up – went a long way towards making him the cult figure he had become by the time he left Paar Boys High to join the Lions late last year.

Wherever he has coached at schoolboy level, be it Grosvenor, Westville Boys High, Glenwood High or Paarl Boys, Erasmus has inspired the kind of adulation which saw Glenwood basically call him a player whisperer by saying he was the kind of coach to "speak to the soul of a player" when he left them.

Under Erasmus, Glenwood began their own sports academy and became the premier school in KwaZulu-Natal, competing and beating the traditional powerhouses of South African Schools rugby in the process, while the rest of the country know him better as the coach who led Paarl Boys to a ridiculous three-year unbeaten streak from 2015 to 2017.

LOYAL COACHING BEGINNINGS

Erasmus's coaching origins may be a bit on the humble side, but they are rooted in one of his coaching traits, loyalty (to go with an almost daft work ethic and an infectious passion). Having been greatly influenced by Herman Viljoen, his first team coach at Henry Honiball's alma mater Escourt High, Erasmus decided to stay at the school and do post matric in 1996 out of loyalty to his coach.

"At the end of 1995 he was diagnosed with cancer and about three or four of us stayed on at the school in honour of him. In 1996 he passed away and I started coaching straight away, playing as a player coach in 1996 and staying on to help out a year later."

The then hooker, who for some reason had also played scrumhalf against Pieter Dixon at primary school and fullback later on, wasn't long in the real world when a back injury forced him to retire at the 'ripe old age of 22'.

Once he got his feet under the coaching table he was lucky to be approached by current Lions chief executive and former Springbok coach Rudolf Straeuli, then at the Sharks, to help out as a technical analyst for an assortment of teams ranging from their academy side to their Vodacom Cup teams.

RIDICULOUS WORK ETHIC

Having been told to earn his stripes, Erasmus took it a little too far by working with five teams: "Those were busy times, Sundays I was doing analysis for about five teams, but that's how it was and where I wanted to be and I was absolutely loving it.

"I'd always start immediately after the games on Saturday, wake up at about five on Sunday, go to church and come back to do some more for the rest of the day. When I started working as a techie I learnt an incredible amount about the game. I've always said I've been blessed to have the wife I have because she's supported me and never complained.”

When Erasmus got itchy feet after being involved with every team in the Sharks set-up except the Sharks themselves, Monument came calling but it didn't feel right for him, but when Paarl Boys came knocking he didn't hesitate.

FALSE START IN PAARL

The time in Paarl – where he churned out talents like Gianni Lombard, Manuel Ras, Francke Horn and Salmaan Moerat, among others – is looked at as a mythical period in his coaching career, when it was also one of the darkest periods in his coaching life.

"We had our backs up against the wall in 2014 because we'd lost one of the inter schools games and somebody told me in front of my whole family that they'd wasted their money on me because I was useless and needed to go.

"That really pushed me out of my comfort zone and really awoke the beast in me. I went back home and shook myself out of feeling sorry for myself decided to try something different and more out of the box with my coaching."

As a coach who obsesses about changing his players' lives, Erasmus barely knows how long the streak was and only calls his time at Paarl Boys one of the highlights in his career.

PROFESSIONAL RUGBY

Coaching professional players will take some getting used to: "My approach hasn't changed, I still get upset when the boys walk into the team area with their hats on and don't follow team discipline.

"I say to people you never want players to feel like schoolboys but at the same time you want to instill the same values and discipline that are needed to make the game great because we get to inspire people – we need to win off the field as well as on the field."