Win it, Boks, to make Rassie’s swansong one for the ages

When the Springboks run on to the pitch tomorrow in Yokohama, they will know that the man who brought them this far will no longer be their coach after the last whistle in the Rugby World Cup final.

And they will play their hearts out to allow Rassie Erasmus to put his hands on the Webb Ellis Cup as one of South Africa’s all-time best national coaches.

Win or lose, Erasmus has confirmed that the final against England will be his last match in charge as head coach.

Erasmus will from next year concentrate solely on his role as director of rugby, the initial position he accepted on a six-year contract in 2017. At the time, he took the decision to also act in the capacity of head coach because of the limited time that was available to him to find a replacement for Allister Coetzee before the World Cup.

He has moulded the Boks into a potentially world-beating combination and won the respect and fierce loyalty of the players.

Prop Tendai “Beast” Mtawarira told SA Rugby Mag this week that Erasmus had played a major role in transforming the side’s race demographic with merit-based selections to meet transformation targets.

“It is something Rassie was honest about, that we need to get the balance correct and we need to get a team that really represents our country. I think we have now achieved that. I think it has been good so far,” said Mtawarira.

Now only one game away from joining the late Kitch Christie and Jake White in the South African folklore of World Cup-winning coaches, Erasmus is adamant that he’ll stand back for a new coach in 2020. It has been rumoured that former Lions coach Johan Ackermann could be in the running for the vacancy.

“It is probably my last Test. It is my last Test that I will be the head coach,” he told media yesterday in Japan. “For me, it’s an emotional one in the sense that I didn’t think 25 Test matches would go that quickly.”

As an added incentive, Erasmus was yesterday nominated for World Rugby’s prestigious Coach-of-the-Year award, an accolade he was also nominated for when still at Irish club Munster in 2018.

The award is in recognition of the miraculous job the former Bok loose forward has done since taking over a team left in shambles by Coetzee.

In his two-year tenure after taking over from Heyneke Meyer in 2016, Coetzee could only achieve 11 wins in 25 Tests and oversee record losses to the All Blacks, Ireland and a first-ever loss to Italy.

Erasmus, 47, guided the Boks to a series win over England and a second place in the Rugby Championship in his first year, which included the first win in New Zealand since 2009, before winning the Rugby Championship for the first time in a decade this year.

Going into tomorrow’s match, Erasmus has won 16 of the 25 when he has been in charge.

“It’s wonderful to be here. It’s sad that it’s only three days and then it is all over. But I will be heavily involved, hopefully, still after this – whatever way we are going to go with the head coach,” Erasmus said.

“Me being involved again gives me such hope for what rugby can do for South Africa.”

The coach also realises the Boks’ power to unite the Rainbow Nation, something that was started with the famous win at home in 1995 and flared up again in 2007. But since 2010 Boks fans have had little to get excited about.

“I was one of those guys three years ago who said ‘let’s just play, boys, let’s just play. Stop talking about this hope thing. Rugby is rugby, and let’s just play’.

“But I’ve totally changed my mind. I believe if we play the right way, and with the passion, and the people can see it, it just helps people forget about their problems, and agree with things.”

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