Boks the best disciplined team at RWC: ‘We’ve earned back referees’ respect’

Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus claims that the Boks had to earn back the respect of referees, which has come to fruition during the World Cup and saw them not receive a single card during the competition pool phase.

The Boks have had a very rocky relationship with refs over the years, mainly due to an infamous video Erasmus made criticising the performance of Australian referee Nic Berry during the British and Irish Lions series back in 2021.

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That saw Erasmus receive the first of two bans, with World Rugby deeming he was taking veiled swipes at referees again on X (formerly Twitter) on last year’s end-of-year-tour.

That inspired the Boks to go on a big campaign to earn the respect of referees during the 2023 international rugby season.

“For us the first word is respect. I think we definitely got it wrong in stages especially when we had the year off with Covid and went into the Lions series. The levels of communication were really tough,” explained Erasmus.

“Even when we played our 100th game against New Zealand we were in a bubble in Australia. World rugby couldn’t be there and the Lions series they couldn’t be there because of Covid. So it was tough to get better communication and I guess on both sides it led to frustration.”

Nigel Owens

Erasmus revealed that it was a call with former top ref Nigel Owens that changed his thinking and approach to dealing with referees, which has led to them forming a much better relationship with them over the current season.

“Last year I had a phone call with Nigel Owens and I said ‘we really want to get this right, we don’t want people not to like us. That is not the reason for us, maybe sometimes having differences and doing things in a way just to get a response.’

“We wanted to know how things worked and I must say what we learned from that conversation is that no matter if we are right the respect you show to the referee you will get back from that referee, even if he makes mistakes or you make mistakes.

“We also had to adapt our game a little bit. If you only rely on maul, it is difficult to referee a maul. If you only rely on a scrum, it’s difficult to referee a scrum.

‘Change game’

Erasmus continued: “I’ll be honest with you, there was one tweet I tweeted after the France game (in 2022), I was quite honest and serious about it. We had to change our game to make it easier for referees.

“So it’s not always this (crunch) thing to work out who is or isn’t dominant … that there are also free flowing passes and open tries. Guys also work hard on level change (on tackles).

“So yes, no cards, I think we are fourth lowest for penalty count. We had to earn it back, we had to earn the respect back and I think it is showing at this stage, that it works both ways.”