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Erasmus' All Blacks admission: 'Terrible build-up' sparked Boks

The loss to New Zealand inspired the Boks

The mastermind behind the Springboks’ inspirational Rugby World Cup campaign – Rassie Erasmus – says that it was a dire run-up to their loss to the All Blacks that ultimately ignited their tournament.

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South Africa’s director of rugby, said after the team’s ultimately crushing, 32-12 victory over England in Japan that the team had been inspired by the opportunity to bring some light and joy into the daily lives of their fellow countrymen.

However, Erasmus says it was the All Blacks loss that effectively made their Rugby World Cup.

He said it had been the mental shift the team needed after the disappointment of defeat in the opening match against New Zealand – a performance the Springboks turned on its head by becoming the first team to win the title after losing a pool match.

“The first All Black game was a great test run for us in terms of handling pressure,” said Erasmus.

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“We were terrible in that week in terms of talking about things and getting tense – it was a terrible build up that told us a lot about how to play the play offs.

“We were quite honest with one another about that. We started to talk a lot about what is pressure.

“In South Africa, pressure is not having a job or if one of your close relatives is murdered. In South Africa there are a lot of problems, which is pressure. We started talking about things like that.

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“Rugby shouldn’t be something that creates pressure; it should be something that creates hope. We have a privilege of giving hope – it’s not a burden.”

https://twitter.com/jimhamilton4/status/1190422226878763008

But Erasmus said that hope was not about words – it was about deeds.

“It’s not talking about hope, and saying you’ve got hope and sending a beautiful Tweet about hope,” he said.

“Hope is when you play well on Saturday and people watch the game and have a nice braaivleis and feel good afterwards.

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“No matter if you’ve got political differences or religious differences or whatever; for those 80 minutes you agree with a lot of things you might disagree on.

“We just believed that this was not a burden, it’s our privilege and the moment you see it in that way it becomes a helluva privilege to try and fix those things.

“The moment you see it in that way it becomes a helluva privilege. We started working towards that; and that’s how we saw this whole World Cup campaign.”

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi said it was hard to describe his emotions when he lifted the trophy: “I honestly can’t explain how I was feeling at that time,” he said.

“But to see the joy in my team mates faces that was the best thing for me because I know how hard they have worked and how hard the coaches have worked.

“The way we played was because we wanted to say thank you to our coach who came in and changed a lot – on the way that we saw rugby – and I’m really grateful that we could do this for him and the coaching staff and everyone in the management.”

Kolisi also said that the team had been inspired by the support from South Africa.

“I have never seen such support from our people back at home and I honestly don’t think we could have done it without them,” he said.

“The videos they sent of people coming together, it was really beautiful for us to see. I really don’t think I can say any more.”

Kolisi said the key change for the team on their journey to the title was the first meeting at the start of the 2018 season.

“From the very first meeting in Joburg, Coach Rassie was very straightforward,” said Kolisi.

“He said we were getting quite a lot of money and doing lots of things off the field, but we didn’t make rugby the main thing.

“He told us straight; it has to change, the shift has to come, rugby is more important; the Springboks are more important than our personal goals and as soon as the team does well good things will come.

“There are so many people who spend their last salary to come and see us play. They want to see us give our best on and off the field. Understanding that was the change of mindset and we started working hard; a lot of us got off social media to make sure we put our hearts and souls into it on and we challenged each other.”

The results of that challenge were a third Rugby World Cup victory.

– SA Rugby

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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