Rassie Erasmus v Evan Roos – SA Rugby the loser

Rassie Erasmus v Evan Roos is more Rassie Erasmus reincarnated as a player. If DHL Stormers No 8 Roos, among the best performing loose-forwards in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship league, can’t crack a Springboks squad of 54 then SA Rugby is the loser.

Roos is a powerful on-field presence for the Stormers. Erasmus was the equal for the Cheetahs, the Cats and the Springboks, not necessarily as physical but in another class in skill and mental appreciation of the game.

But both players have an attitude a coach can either embrace, within reason, or avoid, without reason.

Springboks coach Nick Mallett embraced Rassie, within reason. Cats coach Laurie Mains embraced Rassie, within reason. Springboks coach Harry Viljoen avoided Rassie, without reason.

My context to with or without reason: With reason is absolutely clear communication to the player. It starts with: ‘I think you are the best or in the top tier in this country in your position, which is why you are in the squad. To be a presence and inspiring influence, this is the framework within which you operate.’ Without reason: ‘His personality and attitude are too draining to navigate or change. There are less talented but more enjoyable options.’

Mallett picked Rassie for 32 of his 36 Tests. He did so when all around him, from the Cape, said don’t pick him. Pick Andrew Aitken … hell pick anyone but him. He and Bob Skinstad can’t stand each other. Rassie is not good for the team. He is all about himself. He is selfish, self centred and destructive.

Mallett said: He is first and foremost a great rugby player. And I want him in my team. The rest I will deal with.

Viljoen, who I worked with, was not interested to work with a player with all those characteristics. He went for a lesser skilled player, but, for him, a calmer team influence.

Erasmus, publicly, has said he would not have picked ‘Rassie the Player’.

Roos stands big in size and walks even bigger. He was a giant at schools level at Paarl Boys High, but was reduced to a dwarf when joining the Sharks. He returned to Cape Town humbled and humiliated and Stormers coach John Dobson started rewiring the giant within the battered schools star.

Roos, in bucketloads, has rewarded Dobson’s ability to manage the off-field young man to dovetail with the fantastically talented player on the field.

Roos was comfortably the Stormers best forward post his shoulder operation in the Stormers final matches of the season.

Consider this: Roos only played in 10 of the last 11 matches, including the quarter-final exit.

Roos’s URC Stats

– 6 tries in 10 matches
– ⁠114 carries
– ⁠averaging 11.4 carries per game
– ⁠averging 5.8m per carry
– ⁠42 defenders beaten (6th out of all SA players) – he only played 10 out of a possible 19 matches, 18 league and the q/f
– ⁠88% tackle accuracy
– ⁠6 penalties conceded

He is good enough to be in every national squad (of 54) in the world.

Erasmus, in Chasing the Sun, so often spoke to the players and the media about his playing days. He described himself as entitled, difficult, petulant, divisive and, at times, an asshole. The coaches who understood Erasmus the player would agree, but they are also the coaches who picked him and made him their captain or offered him the captaincy.

Whatever the spat between Erasmus and Roos, it does a disservice to the pedigree of the coach and the talent of the player and all that is golden about the game in South Africa since Erasmus returned, with Jacques Nienaber, from Munster, Ireland in 2018.

I think Erasmus is the best thing to happen to Springboks rugby, as a coach. I thought the same thing when he played.

I think Roos can be huge for the Boks, managed by a coach who should get him and his characteristics because it is like looking in a mirror. If anyone can turn a player from asshole to awesome it should be Erasmus.

It is disappointing that Erasmus, when challenged by this type of player personality, defaulted to a coach so out of character with his own character.

Erasmus, if anyone, should get the best out of Roos.

I have nothing but admiration for Rassie and what he has achieved with the Boks since 2018.

I championed his return from Munster, just as I championed his retention for the Boks when Harry Viljoen was the coach.

Erasmus is the World Cup-winning coach and last season his Boks won 11 from 13 Test matches. The rugby public tends to be in uproar when one ventures any opinion that suggests Rassie could ever get anything wrong, but his coaching pedigree and success doesn’t mean every decision is right.

It is his right to pick who he wants and he lives and dies by that sword. He risks and has risked and left the table the winner. It does not mean each play or player selection is the right one. He omitted Handre Pollard from his World Cup squad in 2023. Those play-offs may have looked a lot different had Pollard not made it to France for the last month of the tournament as an injury replacement for hooker Malcolm Marx.

The final would have looked different had All Blacks Richie Mo’unga and Jordie Barrett succeeded with their respective conversion and penalty kicks and Pollard failed.

The Boks’s goalkicking was 44 percent when Pollard arrived at the World Cup. A Pool game, against Ireland, was lost because of missed penalty and conversion kicks. Ireland won 13-8.

Pollard kicked 13 from 13 versus Tonga, France, England and New Zealand. When the Boks were at 44 percent Pollard was at home in Leicester, England mowing the lawn.

Goalkicking was and always has been crucial to Test wins and World Cup wins, but when Erasmus and Nienaber picked four scrumhalves and no Pollard for the World Cup, they said goal kicking would not win them the World Cup.

When questioned on the 44 percent strike rate pre Pollard’s arrival, they said they were not concerned.

Nienaber, in Chasing the Sun, mocked critics of the four scrumhalves selection. He said there was method in their madness. What method was that? Only picking one of the four specialist No 9s in the World Cup final match 23 and replacing their injured and best hooker (Marx) with Pollard, the flyhalf and goal kicker, on the eve of the play-offs? Marx limping out of the World Cup from a training accident and Pollard asked to replace a hooker surely was not part of the master plan?

Perspective and context. PLEASE.

Not every decision is necessarily the right one and a national squad selection without debate, discussion and cross examination would be a rugby crime.

Roos. the rugby player, has been wronged. If Rassie was coaching the Boks when Rassie was playing, we would not have known Rassie the 36-Test Bok because Rassie would not have picked him. How sad is that thought.

WATCH: HOW RASSIE GOT IT WRONG WITH ROOS

Erasmus’s group of 54 players includes all 54 players from last month’s second alignment camp in Cape Town, with nine uncapped players getting the nod: Marnus van der Merwe, Neethling Fouche, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, Cobus Wiese, Renzo du Plessis, Vincent Tshituka, Juarno Augustus, Ethan Hooker and Ntokozo Makhaza.

The training squad features 31 Rugby World Cup winners, 30 forwards and 24 backs, and is designed to accommodate a staggered arrival of players still involved in club commitments. These include the Bulls and Sharks, both chasing Vodacom URC glory, and the Bok contingent at Leicester, Bath and Sale Sharks still in the Premiership playoffs.

All Japan-based players will link up with the squad when it assembles in Johannesburg on Sunday, 8 June. Erasmus has confirmed that five players – Frans Malherbe, Elrigh Louw, Ben-Jason Dixon, Deon Fourie and Trevor Nyakane – were not considered due to injury.

“An expanded group gives us both training depth and a great opportunity for the younger players to learn from the senior Boks,” said Erasmus. “We’re continuing to build towards 2027, and this squad reflects that blend of experience and potential.”

After two weeks of training in Johannesburg, the Boks face the Barbarians on 28 June at Cape Town Stadium before hosting Italy twice and Georgia in July.

RASSIE THE PLAYER REVISITED – IT IS SPECIAL