Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus grabbed the headlines last year at the Rugby World Cup when he employed his unconventional lights system.

Whilst those who had not tracked his career prior to his time in the international spotlight thought this was a rather left-field new approach from the Bok maestro, those who had seen him in his earlier coaching years knew this was far from a new phenomenon.

Before ascending to the top of the international coaching world, Erasmus carved out a really strong coaching CV at the provincial level. Stops at the Stormers and Munster followed an impressive three-year stint with the Free State Cheetahs.

He first introduced his light system during his time in Bloemfontein.

Speaking recently to SuperSport host and former Springbok centre Gcobani Bobo, who many in the Northern Hemisphere will remember for his hit on former England winger Chris Ashton, Erasmus mentioned a time when the Cheetahs’ arch rivals, the Bulls, outsmarted him and his lights system.

“What the Bulls did one day at their captain’s practice, they were clever,” Erasmus said.

“There were two lights that didn’t function. There were two white lights, two green lights, and two blue lights.

“The first thing they didn’t give me was colour-coded switches. They would say white in writing, and then it’s difficult to go read and make a decision quickly.

“So eventually they put stickers on them for me for the where the white and where the green ones are.

“So we’re on the field, and I say white, and the guys looked at me too; but that’s not what we planned for this week?’

“We were going to play down the blind first, and they looked at me. They played white play, and then on the second line out, I put a green, and they moaned.

“So you know what the Bulls did at captain’s practice? They went up there and swapped all the lights! So green was yellow, and yellow was green.

“So I gave that to them. It took us 10 minutes to figure it out, but then we just swapped it around.”

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Paying further compliments to the Bulls coaching staff, who were at the time being led by a future Springbok coach in Heyneke Meyer, Erasmus said, “The other thing that the Bulls did, which was clever in our coaches box, yeah, obviously everything works with electricity.

“The mobile light is actually in my bar now at home, those two sets of lights.

“So they all laughed at us as our coaches’ box power went out!

“We don’t have power I said, why don’t we please get a lead? We’ll plug in from you guys. We can’t. So I said ‘please, man’ and we couldn’t play the game and we were awful because we weren’t comfortable.

“Again, I still see people see it the wrong way; it’s the players who make the plans, and they decide this is what we’re going to do, and we’re going to do it.”

Now acutely aware of a flaw in their coach’s plan, the Cheetahs players came up with a foolproof plan to ensure they were not left running the wrong moves again!

“Anyway, then the players made a box with batteries for us. Well, anyway, so we had a backup box, and the guys won three Currie Cups in a row!”