“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” [Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities].
The best of times and the worst of times: Franco Mostert has seen them both in a 12-year career spanning half the known rugby world – South Africa, England and Japan. As a Springbok, the man nicknamed ‘Sous’ [‘sauce’ for a surname which sounds like ‘mustard’] experienced the harrowing heartache of that cataclysmic 57-0 loss to New Zealand in North Harbour on 16th September 2017.
As a Lion, he started in three successive Super Rugby final losses to Kiwi opponents between 2016 and 2018. Sous was at the epicentre of that winter of despair for South African rugby, the season of darkness where they had learned to be losers after decades of sunlit success in amateur times.
It needed the coming of Rassie Erasmus as director of rugby to shake off the Super Rugby spell, build a new epoch of belief, and lead the national team towards another spring of hope. To achieve transformation, he had to revolutionise the game on and off the field: establishing the principle of overseas selection policy in 2018, then shifting the axis of South Africa’s game north with the induction of the four South African ex-Super Rugby franchises to the United Rugby Championship in 2021.
By moving further afield, South African rugby paradoxically rediscovered its essence. Erasmus’ first World Cup win in 2019 was based unapologetically on 80-minute scrum power and a ferocious, unyielding rush defence. The 6-2 bench was born and the tight forwards became once more the basis for national success, at the start and the finish of the game alike.
Erasmus added 37-year-old hooker Schalk Brits to the Springbok squad for that tournament. Brits was fully retired from the game and had spent his twilight years at English champions Saracens rather than at home in the Western Cape. But there was method in Rassie’s apparent madness, and it was an integral part of the new age of wisdom.
“If you look at Bongi [Mbonambi] and how he struggled in the Currie Cup final and then, four weeks later, he comes off the bench against France, hits five lineouts and scores the winning try.
“Schalk Brits had a massive role in that.
“Bongi is not a guy who has 50 Test caps. Before a World Cup, to get a guy like him working with a guy like Schalk Brits is great.
“Schalk is not a guy just looking for a position, he is there to help [Bongi] with his throwing, his scrumming and [play in] European conditions.”
Brits himself takes up the story of Erasmus’ insistence of a return to when Springbok scrums were full of mighty men and feared worldwide.
“When Rassie took over as Springbok coach, [he] challenged us to think differently about the scrum, and he asked us to embrace it as a key part of our overall strategy.
“Rassie made us think of complete dominance, of having the mindset of relishing and getting excited for every single opportunity to scrummage.
“He designed the 6-2 split on the bench as a big part of this, and he asked us to no longer think of ourselves as 1, 2, 3 and 16, 17, 18 but as two integral units of the team… ready and waiting to make a quantitative difference to the team and the scoreboard; no hiding, no passive scrumming, just every single one a moment to dominate our opposing pack.”
We know now how spectacularly well the Springbok experiment has turned out. By cycling backwards, with a deep dive into the past of a great rugby nation, Erasmus has taken it forwards once again, to the point where his philosophies are becoming the envy of its most ancient rivals.
New Zealand head coach Scott Robertson was full of praise of Rassie’s new model army after the All Blacks’ end-of-year tour match in Turin.
“South Africa, the model they run, with all [players] available [it is the ideal]. Some play in the northern hemisphere, some in the southern hemisphere and their own country. All selectable.
“You cannot replace Test experience – that is one thing I’ve learned. They’ve got a got a great balance. They’ve got youth coming through, they’ve got great benches, they finish over top of teams and they’ve got big squads – they can have two really [high] quality XVs. Professional rugby is always evolving, you’ve always got to be a step ahead.”
The success of Rassie’s policy is easy to measure. Take a look at the following table, culled from the 2024 Rugby Championship.
The pattern was reinforced on the Springboks’ end-of year tour, with three matches against Scotland, England and Wales yielding a healthy fourth quarter points differential of +30.
Erasmus selected 51 different players overall in the course of 2024, and one of the prime keys was rotation at the three spots reserved for the big men in jerseys 4, 5 and 7. Rassie picked eight different combinations at those positions in 13 matches, switching the lineout captaincy between four different second-rows in the process. A ninth [Jean Kleyn] undoubtedly would have extended the merry-go-round of personnel even further, only to be sidelined by injury the whole time.
Three different men started at number four [Eben Etzebeth, Salmaan Moerat and Pieter-Steph du Toit], another quartet at number five [Mostert, RG Snyman, Ruan Nortjé and Du Toit] with a trio on the blind-side flank [Du Toit, Elrigh Louw and Ben-Jason Dixon]. One of the safer conclusions to be drawn from such a panoply of talent is South Africa has the best pool of big-and-tall athletes on planet rugby.
If most are super-sized, they are all also very mobile. Repeat world player of the year winner Du Toit can play all three spots more than efficiently at Test level. Even so, he came under stern challenge for the blue-riband six jersey between 2021 and 2023 from Mostert. Dixon shifts between second and back-row for the Stormers. Heck, Etzebeth’s best position in Top 14 rugby was thought to be six by his club Toulon, even though he is the best second row on the planet.
It is South Africa’s corps of wildebeests stampeding from a 6-2 bench which makes most of the difference to Springbok success, and it is an echo of some of the most resplendent and forbidding sides in their illustrious history. Who can forget second row Frik du Preez, galloping down the touchline against the 1962 British and Irish Lions like a prototype Jonah Lomu, beating backs for fun?
Du Preez’s mantle may have been taken on in a new era by the double WPOTY, but it is men such as Mostert who allow the Springboks to tick over without missing a beat. He may be laughingly known as ‘Sous’ in Afrikaans, but among the isiXhosa commentators he is simply the ‘Universal Soldier’ – indestructible, indefatigable and relentless.
The tour match against Wales was no more than a typical ‘Sous’ day at the office: first in cleanout attendances as the first or second man [24], first in tackles with 12; leading a 100% Springbok lineout on 15 throws with six takes of his own. A full-on, 80-minute performance.
Mostert is still the best lineout skipper in South Africa and he is still probably the best partner in the second-row for the monstrous Etzebeth. The pair enjoy an instinctive understanding of how their games can fit together on the field. When Etzebeth chases up for the contestable kick and a potential block-down, Mostert drops back to become the lead cleanout at the next recovery ruck on defence.
A little bit of extra effort, shuttling back and clearing the first defender away quickly creates quick ball and some space outside for kick-pass by Aphelele Fassi.
Like all good partnerships, Mostert and Etzebeth spark off each other’s movement and energy levels. When one moves, the other follows.
At the start of the play both second-rows are well away from the scene of the action, but when Mostert begins to accelerate as the first option on to a short ball after the wide phase, Etzebeth is the man tracking him in support.
In the modern world of rugby, you can have two big men split to either side of the field covering the wide-open prairie on defence. If one is momentarily subtracted from the play, the other can pick up the slack.
‘Whatever you can do, I can do better’ – in the spirit of friendly competition.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to Mostert’s work ethic and innate ability to complement the attributes of others occurred in the 29th minute, when his brother in arms was forced off the field by injury. On trotted Snyman, and Mostert ensured the Springbok second-row lost none of its momentum with the swap.
At the start Mostert is doing what all top-drawer lineout callers do – bringing the newcomer up to speed and integrating them into the lineout pattern as early as possible. There is complex motion involved before the throw, with two decoys before RG tracks to the tail to take the delivery and Mostert providing the rear support lift. At the end of the sequence, Sous is still following Snyman’s movements faithfully, awaiting the offload he knows he will come.
Anyone who wants to trail the upward graph of South African success over the past six years need look no further than the career of Mostert. Having experienced the abject ‘downs’ of that 57-0 blackout in 2017, and the despair of three consecutive final defeats, Sous trod the prophetic new road flagged by Erasmus wholeheartedly. It has already produced two winning World Cups and spawned a new generation of mobile big men worthy to step into the shoes of Du Preez. Where there was one Universal Soldier, now there is an army.
South Africa is lucky to have a South African coach .....
And this is your main takeaway?🤣
I think I read somewhere that Rassies win ratio in his first year was 50% & his current win rate is 71%. Please advise?
If so, are we all being massaged by a well oiled propaganda machine perpetuating what Steve Hansen called the "Springbok myth" (in a recent interview on YT DSPN podcast)? I mean, the unbeatable Boks were beaten twice this year.
I can't shake the sense of randomness. The RWC2019 win was on the back of a loss to the ABs in pool play. Hardly part of Rassies plan, I'd say. And nor were the three single point wins in the Finals round at RWC2023. Is Rassie being correctly ascribed the adjectives of "genius", "innovator", "world leading", blah blah blah, when it seems there are multiple variables & uncontrollables in play?
Other than "the bomb squad" (not a new idea by any means) what else has Rassie actually contributed that sets him apart as a "genius"? Myth or legend? For me. MYTH.
you rather stick to your crusaders blah blah blah
Rassie 65% up to 2019, 85% in his second tenure. 72% overall.
All great teams build a certain mythology around them, none more so than the ABs! I recall we only beat them at their best once out of six attempts with England, but the average margin was only 4 points.
So what makes that difference between winning and losing tight games?
Rassie has obv found the formula, just like Shag and Ted before him.
And in the process he is rotating a huge number of players in key positions. Look at the comp - where NZ have laregly been stuck on Sititi, Vaai and Scooter at 4, 5 and 6, SA are experimenting and still winning! That's no myth, it's rugby fact.
84.61%
All sports have uncontrollable variables which can change the course of games.
You have to plan to limit the amount of “luck” required to win closely contested games but even more importantly recognise those moments when they inevitably happen and be able to adjust in real time.
So, to your point, I’m sure Rassie wouldn’t have planned to lose to the ABs in the group stage but his ability to keep the squad motivated and believing they could still go on and win the WC (even though never done before) instilled a character and belief in the players, even in the face of adversity, that can’t be ignored.
Invincibility is a mind set. An idea that when a team goes onto the pitch in any game, they’re thinking “we’ll win.” You could see this in the Arsenal invincible team where players stood in the tunnel waiting to go on to the pitch, looked at their team mates and thought “yeah, we’ve got this.” (Even they got “lucky” against Portsmouth)
If you plan to limit the variables (something Russie does exceptionally well) and luck is on your side you win three in a row by one point. When you plan to limit the variables and luck swings to the other side you lose two games by 1 point each (Ireland and Argentina)
The top end of world rugby is probably the most competitive we’ve ever seen, South Africa, New Zealand, France and Ireland all playing exceptional rugby. Even teams like England, Argentina and the Aussies, despite their inconsistency, have shown they can still win playing classy rugby against the current top four squads.
In such a competitive climate, Rassie has used some old tricks, some new (you show me an international match where a winger has taken a line out throw) in the modern game to keep opponents thinking, adjusting styles (2019 - 2024) but also in the background planned and trained the basics.
Mostly though, yip, every single team faces uncontrollable variables but Rassie has built the character and belief in every player in that squad to think that no matter what, “we can win.” The instilled belief of being unbeatable. No one else is managing that at the moment.
Simple man management is often the hardest task of all (even more so with 51 caps)
Genius (whom I to say), but I think it’s a smidgen disingenuous to write that off as myth.
Isn't Lood de Jager playing again, with 59 caps and a proven partnership with Eben? Who knows whether he can get back to his best, and RWC 2027 may be a bridge too far. But he's younger than both Eben and Sous. Not the worst extra weapon in the armory.
I don't know but you'd have to question whether he'll become part of the big man rotation again now Flankers. I thought he began to show signs of wear and tear a couple of seasons ago, not quite as abrasive as I remember?
The confidence with which the Boks are now playing is remarkable. I would even hazard to say that they are now an even better team than the one which won the the World Cup last year. As greats retire, or begin to fade, the next generation emerges.
To have capped 51 players this year must be something never seen before. That is some money in the bank for the future.
They are certainly deeper than ever, and deeper than they were at the last World Cup in most positions in the team Miz... Rassie's thirst to become better seems insatiable!
Such a respectful and informative article Nick, thanks so much for recognising Franco for his huge contribution to the Boks success. I love the video of Frik Du Preez. In 1997 I was privileged to meet the legend face to face as he awarded me a trophy in Jwaneng Botswana. I had a rugby ball from the 1962 Test between the British Lions and the Boks in Bloemfontein that had been signed by both teams. I showed Frik the ball and asked him to sign it again, which he kindly did as well as Morne Du Plessis who was also there. Frik was visibly moved to see the ball and I still have it to this day.
Thanks CF.
You were privileged indeed to meet the great Frik, one teh handful of forward - like Colin Meads from NZ and Ken Goodall of Ireland - who would have crossed the great divide and handled the pro era comfortably!
They had that universal athleticism too which was so unique.
The move north has had a huge impact on SA rugby on multiple levels and I reckon the rewards have only just begun to be realised. They will likely see increasing commercial revenues as the success of the URC product continues to grow, their playing success is also likely to increase as their voice at the table becomes stronger e.g. they won’t be forced to shuttle at the last minute between continents due to the EPCR format rules any more and then there’s the intangibles of playing experience picked up across all corners of the rugby world. Rassie is shrewd to keep the greats closely tied to the Boks through the twilight of their careers and then beyond with transition, development mentoring and coaching support to the squad (and potential future Boks).
Not sure exactly how much influence Rassie had on the pivot North but whoever the architects were, they hit the bullseye for sure. And of course beyond that, there’s the 7N still to come…
I tend to agree with you Ed, I feel this is just the start of something for SA. And as the product becomes more successful the value of SA rugby will rise with it, and they will prob become the only nation to realize both tours of NZ in one hemisphere, and regular appearances in the 6N in the north.
Mostert has been a great servant for SA Rugby. Has frequently been asked to cover many positions. Mostert and PSDT remind me so much of Juan Smith and Danie Russouw in 2007. Great players with great work ethic. Mostert is a typical example of how Rassie has asked multiple players to think out of the box, become versatile and cover multiple roles and positions. Kwagga Smith covers the whole backline and backrow, Kolbe can go into scrum half and play all 3 positions at the back. PSDT covers the second row, scrum halves cover the wings, full backs can become 10's and 10's can become 12's. Hell a specialist openside played at hooker in the World cup final for 70mins. Outrageous! Rassie is a master at man management and getting the most out of players. By exposing them to different roles they begin to understand the jobs and roles of teammates better. Every player understands what's required of each other and they work together to create a cohesive system where they support one another. The Springboks dont just give attention to the top 15 or 22 players but focus on the development of all 35-45 players in squad. They try to get every player playing at a level that is equivalent to the best player in that position and they work together to accomplish that goal. I cant imagine how good it must feel to be in that environment and be backed by the coaches whether you be on the bench or in the wider squad everyone has a role and everyone will get their chance and they know it. The coach demands their effort, commitment and loyalty and in return he rewards them and gives them the platform to succeed. Rassie empowers his players, he greatly enhances them and he gives them the platform to enhance themselves and enhance each other. His focus on mentorship cannot be understated. In 2019 Francois Louw, Francois Steyn and Schalk Britz were the key mentors in the squad. Today Duane Vermeulen, Willie Le Rouw, Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Faf, Reinach and PSDT are having a profound impact on young players coming through. This is accelerating the development of these players. Fassie, Nortje, Elrigh Louw, Sacha Feinberg Mgomezulu and Steenekamp are the major benefactors so far. Rassie is plotting towards 2027, alot of people have said the Boks will be too old by then but nobody would bet against Erasmus winning a threepeat.
Yes the 6-2 bench [not to mention the 7-1] has brought fresh demands with it, esp up front. The phsyical profile of those Springbok locks/blind sides is based on their mobility as much as their size, and you can see why.
Of that mentoring group you quote all seven have overseas experience, and four of them have played prob the bulk of their rugby overseas. That's what gives them an extra edge when imparting their wisdom!
Mostert is Afrikaans for Mustard
Yep I got that Bull😁