We know all the ignorant Rassie scoffers are secretly hoping Rassie will fail so they can wag their well manicured fingers and say I told you so etc. However SA Rugby men are wishing him the very best as he bravely takes hold of the poisoned chalice and fights to restore Bok greatness against all internal odds.
The moment that Rassie Erasmus was asked why he was the right appointment to a Springbok position so littered with coaches that tried and failed, he answered forthrightly: I have a plan.
The new Bok coach is confident that the plan he has, for the job he has always wanted, will be a simpler one to his predecessors, and will be based on success.
In his opening day as Bok coach Erasmus made it clear that winning rugby was the only currency for his tenure as coach and while that might not always satisfy the needs of the rugby faithful, it will be an important part of his tenure.
Erasmus believes his plan will work not because it simply is a better plan than others before him, but rather because he knows how to negotiate the “potholes”. It is in being able to do this in a treacherous environment that Erasmus believes he will be able to succeed where some of his predecessors have failed.
“If you’re asking about the appointment, the leadership needs to answer that. Me personally, well We’ve got a plan. I’ve seen a few plans in the past, I’ve seen the potholes and if you come into a system and you’ve got so many plans, but you don’t understand what the potholes are and you want to see, you want to learn from your own mistakes, normally you get fired before you learn from those mistakes,” he explained.
One of those potholes has been the enduring argument by coaches for pre-season camps, for access to players and to have everybody working to ensure the Springboks are the greatest priority and not just a sidebar in some parts of the rugby country.
To do this he is keen to head out into the country, not to disrupt the teams from their own environment but to blend himself into theirs. To be with the sides as they negotiate Super Rugby and to make sure the players know and see him a lot more often than has been the case in the past.
“There is a thing in South Africa where access to the players has always been a problem. We see it as this massive obstacle. From my point of view, it isn’t a simple plan, but if you don’t go out there and coach 365 days and be with those teams, overcome that hurdle and get to know the players, get to see the players, their conditioning, when they are in the team talk, when they are under pressure, when they get dropped? If you don’t see them in that environment with those franchises then I think you are knocking on a closed door forever.
“That to me would be the big thing. We have really done that since November. The last thing is that I think we have good coaches, and we have the playing personnel, so if we can tie those two together and hard work, we are in with a good chance.”
Erasmus will have a much smaller management team than some of his predecessors as well, and believes it is necessary to “keep things aligned”. But he is willing to admit he doesn’t have all the answers and in a situation like that will rather look to consultants to fill any void that is needed.
“When you talk of a streamlined management team, to me it is nice to have 23 management members - I see England has that and that is a trend that is going on,” he added.
“That’s nice to have that working with people, but I think the daily people you want to manage around Springbok players is not more than 12 or 13. There are so many opinions and IP there that you have to keep everybody aligned.
“The actual management team will be around that but we will definitely have room for consultants. We don’t think we have all the answers, there are definitely shortcomings in our management team which we won’t fill today. In the next few months and weeks where we see we need that we will fill it up.”
Erasmus is still in his honeymoon period as coach and the tough times are still ahead. Most notably a three-test series against England in June which will test his plans and priorities. But for now he believes he is on the right track and has been given an extremely generous six year contract to prove himself.
Only time will tell if his plan will work as well as he believes it will.
Go Rassie and the Boks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
