Former Springbok coach and current Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus has continued his online tirade against match officials, the Lions and World Rugby “technicalities”.
In a fairly unprecedented move, the 2019 Rugby World Cup winning coach uploaded an hour long video where he talks to the camera and goes through a number of decisions and incidents from the first Test against the British and Irish Lions.
This follows other shorter videos he has put out on twitter this week, garnering all sorts of attention and criticism from various circles of the globe.
Erasmus started off by clarifying his position as a water carrier, something Warren Gatland himself commented on.
“There’s nothing preventing anybody – apart from the head coach – from being the water carrier, but that’s up to Warren to moan about,” he says.
The main gripe appears to be that he feels South Africa were shown a lack of respect by referee Nick Berry and his officials, and when Erasmus and his team reached out for clarification on the incidents in question, so that they can formulate team selection, the response was inadequate.
Erasmus, a former Test flanker, believes that some officials were under pressure due to the Lions’ camp words in the media last week, about TMO Marius Jonker in South Africa.
“We feel we got no joy from anything because we were quiet last week and they (the Lions camp) were all over the media, we got no positive results on the field,” said Erasmus.
The hour long video has a 15-minute intro to give some background, before going through a total of 26 video clips that show inconsistency and incorrect calls.
The RWC winning coach has welcomed ‘anyone’ to make a long video of the same nature that shows how the Lions also had bad decisions against them, as he says he feels that rugby is in a bad place if there are so many incorrect calls being made against both teams.
Some of the bigger talking points were the Hamish Watson tip tackle and a similar incident on winger Makazole Mapimpi that wasn’t even penalised.
WATCH: The controversial Watson tackle which escaped any card vs Springboks
Tongue in cheek, Erasmus commented:
“If that’s allowed and you can do it, by all means just tell us. We would have loved to hear that on Sunday night, then we could have practiced that on Monday morning or Tuesday morning.”
Brilliantly sarcastic here from Rassie
‘If that’s allowed and you can do it by all means just tell us, we would have loved to know this on Sunday night.’ pic.twitter.com/nkWQn8dSSi
— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) July 29, 2021
He felt that his captain was shown very little respect by the officials when compared with how they reacted to Alun Wyn Jones.
He was also very inhappy about the Cheslin Kolbe incident with Mako Vunipola, when it comes to player safety.
WATCH: Unimpressed Vunipola loses patience with Cheslin Kolbe in Cape Town
“I know on some of the clips I might have sounded sarcastic, I apologise for that. I guess the frustration is just.. I don’t understand how at this level… We waited for 12 years to play a match like this..
“If you think this was going over the top and it shouldn’t go out to the media, then I did this in my personal capacity, not as part of the Springboks, and I’ll withdraw myself from the Springbok management team,” he said in closing.
He also added that if referee Berry had simply responded to the queries in time, he wouldn’t have to be all over social media.
Sign In