RWC19: Why Erasmus was always SA Rugby’s first-choice man for the Boks

Putting a finger on the single biggest reasons why the Springboks captured the biggest prize in world rugby in Yokohama, Japan, on this day a year ago, always triggers a lively debate.

The shrewd, meticulous tactician Rassie Erasmus was initially engaged as the first director of rugby at the beginning of 2018, but the REAL pathway to a third World Cup triumph was paved thanks to a masterstroke by the game’s often-maligned national umbrella body.

When Allister Coetzee was sacked in March 2018, the SA Rugby brains trust, conceded to allow Erasmus to coach the Springboks without having to step down from the primary role in which he had initially been employed.

Just 18 months later, trailblazing captain Siya Kolisi and his band of warriors had hoisted the famous Webb-Ellis Cup aloft and were world champions for a third time.

Very few hard-core rugby fans would probably forget how Erasmus used colour cards and “disco lights” to communicate with his Free State Cheetahs players from the coaching box back in 2006.

“DJ Rassie” had transformed the Free State Cheetahs from mere participants into champions in a short space of time and led them to four back-to-back Currie Cup finals between 2004 and 2007, of which they won two.

He told perplexed media and coaching counterparts ahead of the 2006 Currie Cup final at the time that using lights was simply a “quicker way to communicate with players” and convey information to them on the field.

Even back then, the affable Bok mentor, who celebrates his 48th birthday on Thursday, was an innovator who was way ahead of his time, both technically and tactically.

Rassie is a man who simply cannot shy away from a massive challenge and there is arguably no bigger one in the world game than coaching the Springboks.

Adding to the magic he crafted in Bloemfontein, he doubled up as a head coach and transformed a struggling Stormers squad into Super Rugby playoff contenders and had the same impact at Munster in Ireland.

His coaching history tells us one thing – He has never stepped into a plumb position with a golden spoon, and that takes a special kind of person with very distinctive attributes.

So, it was in SA Rugby’s interests to always keep him within touching distance of the national set-up, based on those very strong traits they had identified.

Rewinding to his initial stints at the Cheetahs, Stormers and Munster, again he took the reins during a very rocky period in Springbok rugby history, convinced that the dual responsibility wasn’t going to weigh him down.

Aside from the associated passion and pride in the famous green and gold jersey, all the players, who had eaten, slept, trained, lived and played together for an intensive 20 week period, was bought into Rassie’s simplistic, back-to-basics approach and focus on the Boks’ traditional strengths.

Simplistic it may have been, but the strategy, from which Rassie rarely wavered, also completely out-foxed another of the world’s rugby coaching virtuosos, his England opposite number, Eddie Jones.

Much like 1995 and 2007, it plunged our troubled nation into a prolonged celebratory frenzy and – albeit temporarily – a sense of national unity.

Excuse me while I saunter off to go and watch that memorable final again for the umpteenth time.

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