Rassie’s hardest Boks call: To cull or curate for RWC 2027?

Rassie Erasmus’s biggest Boks challenge is not the All Blacks at Eden Park on Saturday, 6th September. It is whether to cull or curate and what to do to win a third successive Rugby World Cup in Australia in 2027. When and who does he say goodbye to? writes Mark Keohane.

I’ve watched Rassie Erasmus make big, ruthless and brilliant calls for seven years.

I have also watched him roll the dice, look to the heavens and pray.

Three one-point wins in the 2023 RWC play-offs were not down to four magnificent years of planning or the work of a soothsayer.

The Boks won the World Cup in 2023 thanks to the guy, Handre Pollard, who both Rassie and Jacques Nienaber left out of the RWC squad, while they picked four scrumhalves, played one of them on the wing in the group stages and in the final only selected one scrumhalf in the match-day squad of 23.

So please don’t tell me that was genius.

Handre Pollard was never meant to be at the 2023 RWC by choice of the coaches.

When the Boks at the 2023 RWC were kicking at 44 percent at posts pre Pollard’s arrival, as an injury replacement for the injured hooker Malcolm Marx, Erasmus was bullish that he was not concerned about a 44 percent strike rate.

Pollard bailed him and Nienaber out.

There was no master plan to that, but the ice in the veins and determination of a great wearing No 10 for the Boks was the bailout.

No Pollard in the play-offs, no World Cup win and no doctorate for Rassie.

Boks will not win 2027 World Cup without Jacques Nienaber

Don’t be seduced by the trophies.

Pollard won two World Cups for the Boks, in 2019 and 2023, and Morne Steyn, not a consideration for the Boks in the Lions series initially, came out and won the series for Erasmus and Nienaber in 2021.

Goalkicking has been at the heart of every Boks success story.

All Blacks flyhalf Beauden Barrett missed a sitter of a conversion in Wellington in 2018 to level scores at 36-all. The Boks won 36-34 and folklore describes that as the moment the plan came together. The other Barrett, Jordie, missed a penalty and Richie Mo’unga missed a conversion in the Paris 2023 final.

Those kicks go over and rugby history looks very different.

South African-born All Blacks flyhalf Andrew Mehrtens misses with a drop goal on 79 minutes to win the All Blacks the 1995 World Cup final and our landscape in South Africa looks very different post Joel Stransky’s extra-time title-winning drop goal.

That was not coach’s call in 95. Neither was it in 2023.

Pollard’s 13 from 13 successes at the 2023 RWC should never have happened because he was not in the squad selected to go to France.

Context and perspective.

That was never part of the ‘never challenge’ master plan.

There was no master plan.

Gold dust was sprinkled on Erasmus and Nienaber that day, and, for the most, gold dust continued to be sprinkled into 2024.

Now it is different in 2025.

Now it needs a plan and not a group of generational players who will be remembered as the best in their positions, and a missed kick from in front or 13 from 13 from a player not in the original group.

Erasmus, without his anchor Nienaber at the moment, must make some calls.

Win now, build for 2026 or all in for 2027.

Crazy how success makes one forget what got you success.

Erasmus in 2025 has forgotten what got him his Varsity doctorate.

He needs to pause before he believes his own hype.

Rassie, right now for me, is like the boxer who ate pasta, ran at five in the AM and worked a day job to win the title.

Once he won it, he believed he couldn’t eat pasta because a dietician told him, he could’t wake before five because some app told him and could not work a day job to defend the World Cup title because he was a World Cup winner.

Rassie’s biggest challenge is not the opposition but those players who won him back-to-back World Cup titles.

And his understanding of who he is.

Nigel: Fassi lucky not to get yellow

It is also his mindset, his humility and the acceptance he comes from Despatch and not Beverly Hills.

For the record, the Springboks are the first team to win back-to-back World Cups away from home (2019 and 2023).

That second title was won by a group with an average age around 30, the oldest at the tournament.

That age brought steel in the clutch moments, but it also sets a ticking clock. History tells you most World Cup winners ride a sweet spot in the late 20s; the Boks defied it. Can they do it again in 2027 with a core that will be 30-plus—some deep into their 30s—or is it time to turn the wheel?

The calendar forces the question.

From 2026, South Africa and New Zealand revive traditional long tours under the “Greatest Rugby Rivalry” banner: three (and possibly four) Tests and midweek fixtures in South Africa, then the return series in 2030.

It’s a commercial and sporting feast—and a selection headache. Do you back the double-world champions en masse for one last epic, then change, or do you start the cull at the end of this season to build a team that peaks in Australia in 2027?

Here’s my view, shaped by what Rassie has proved in terms of  values, clarity, timing and honesty.

1) Don’t rip up the jersey at the end of 2025.
Mass culls breed chaos.

Rassie’s 2018 shows the price of starting over: he wore the growing pains (7 losses from 14 starts). Most coaches are fired after such a first season.

But this squad isn’t where 2018 was; it’s a champion group with a winning language. You protect that culture while you re-tool, not by detonating it. Tell the stalwarts—privately, now—where they fit across the next 24 months, and pick with a map, not a microscope.

2) Use 2026 as the handover, not the last dance.
The All Blacks tour of South Africa in 2026 will define selection courage. I would keep a spine of the double-World Cup winners through that series—two tightheads across the window, two hookers, one of the senior locks, one of the loose forward leaders, the general at 10, and a single back-three elder statesman. Around them, flood in the next wave and make 40% of every match-day 23 players who will still be in their athletic prime in 2027–29. It’s respectful to the greats and ruthless about the future, which is the Rassie way.

3) Set non-negotiable gates.
Selection can’t be vibes and highlight reels. Put three gates in writing and stick to them:

• Minutes & availability: If a veteran can’t bank Test minutes across 2026 because of injury or workload management, he gives way to the successor for the following window.

• Speed audit: Test rugby is a speed game. GPS doesn’t lie. If repeat speed/effort drops below role benchmarks, sentiment can’t save a jersey.

• Versatility tax: The 6–2 or 7–1 bench split works because certain seniors cover multiple roles; if they no longer can, the selection math changes.

4) Name the succession in each channel.
This isn’t a shopping list; it’s a blueprint.

• • Front row: Keep one of the great tightheads, one hooker mentor and one loosehead lock-pick for 2026; bring the next-gen hooker and a genuine scrummaging tighthead into proper Test minutes now, not in a 2027 panic.

  • Locks: One of the Centurions leads 2026; the partner role must be owned by a 24–27-year-old by the end of that tour, with a third lock blooded as a line-out caller.

  • Loose trio: Retain one leader through 2026; elevate two specialist 6/8 athletes with range and line-out value. For me, Kolisi has to be there, even if you only get 20 on-field minutes from him when it matters most.

  • 9–10: The Boks have lived on control at 10 and chaos at 9. Keep the conductor at 10 through 2026, but give his heir 400–600 Test minutes by end-2026. At 9, settle on a top two and stop rotating for the sake of it; partnership beats auditions.

  • Midfield: The championship axis has been continuity and defence IQ. Keep one of the two senior centres and accelerate a power-runner and a distributor who can kick.

  • Back three: No emotion here. Pick on repeat speed and air dominance. One senior winger stays through 2026; the rest must be prime-age flyers who can own the high ball.

5) Communicate the “why”.
Rassie, from what I have heard from within the squad is that Rassie is a shocker in his lack of empathy. Everything he detested as a player, he is doing as a coach. Treat these buggers with respect. They won you everything. Don’t be a bully and don’t be an arsehole. I have heard too many stories that too much of the latter has crept into the guy who returned to South Africa to save the Boks.

Rassie needs humility.

Forget ‘Dr Rassie’ and ‘He is in your Head …’

You can’t be playing that at the stadium when Australia are pumping you at Ellis Park, you can’t be playing that when Ireland is beating you in South Africa …’

Perspective please.

The players who carried South Africa to Yokohama and Saint-Denis deserve more than a cold press release.

Rassie can be clinical, but I would like to think that he is not careless. You look those men in the eye and explain the plan. You let them choose their exit. For me, it is ~after the 2026 All Blacks tour, after a home send-off—because that dignity doesn’t cost you performance; it buys you legacy.

Why this timeline works

• It respects reality. The 2023 group’s age profile was an outlier—oldest at the tournament—and Rassie himself said the average age hovered at 30. The odds of projecting the same cohort to win again at 33–35 are mathematically worse than regenerating into that historical late-20s sweet spot by 2027. You don’t chase lightning; you reload.

• It mirrors Rassie’s best habit. He’s never been afraid to suffer short-term pain to win the long game, as 2018 showed. But he also knows when continuity beats churn. This plan splits the difference. I hope Rassie reads this.

• It leverages 2026. That tour isn’t just romance; it’s a live-fire exam against the only team who can match South Africa for big-moment muscle memory. If the next core grows up there—under the lights, under the noise—2027 becomes a campaign and not a gamble. The schedule exists; use it.

The pushback I expect

‘Don’t you owe the double-champs the right to defend until they drop?’

No.

You owe them honesty and one last summit worthy of their careers. The 2026 All Blacks series is exactly that. It lets South Africa celebrate them properly and gives the next wave the best classroom in rugby: three Tests against New Zealand with a nation’s attention on every ruck, play and kick at posts.

‘What if form collapses in 2025—doesn’t that force a cull?’

Poor results shouldn’t make permanent policy. Read Ellis Park, 38 unanswered points conceded and am embarrassing night for South Africans who paid upwards of R2000 to attend the game, individually.

React to individuals and not headlines. If a senior star’s floor drops below Test level, move earlier. But don’t confuse one campaign’s turbulence with a mandate for mass exits.

‘Isn’t history against a 30-plus champion?

Yes—and that’s the point. The Boks defied history in 2023; you don’t plan on defying it twice the same way. You build toward the age profile that wins most often, with just enough grizzled experience to anchor tight knockout games.

My message to Rassie – use it brother or lose it … 

Cull?

No …

Curate?

Yes … 

The end of this season is the wrong time for sweeping goodbyes.

The right time is after the 2026 All Blacks tour, with everyone clear from now how that end game looks.

Keep the spine for those five November 2025 Test matches.

Elevate the heirs immediately and relentlessly across 2025–26.

Make 2026 the handover in plain sight, not a farewell festival.

Enter 2027 with a squad whose heartbeat is 27–29, flanked by a half-dozen double-world champions who still move like starters and think like closers.

You did that in 2019 and you won the big one.

That’s how you respect the past without mortgaging the future.

That’s how you give South Africa its best shot at the most outrageous hat-trick in rugby.

And that’s the kind of hard, human decision Rassie Erasmus has made before—and will have to make again.

Can Rassie make it again?

I am not sure.

Does he remember he comes from Despatch?

I am not sure.

I love the guy, but there is so much not to love about him when he sits on the pedestal.

He is such a lekker oke when he mocks the ones on the pedestal and such a let down when he is the tone-deaf oke sitting on the pedestal.

Does he remember 7/14 in his first Test season and all the good goalkicking fortune?

No.

I just want to remind him about that season, who is he and where he comes from.

I also want to remind him about his time as a Test player with the Boks, why Nick Mallett so loved him and Harry Viljoen did not.

I want him to think about his contribution then, his behaviour and his mentality as a player.

To quote Rassie, he would not have picked the latter-day Rassie to play for the Springboks.

Equally, every coach would have picked the mid-20s Rassie, on ability alone.

Rassie, as a player and coach, is the determining factor in love and no love. He got love and he got no love.

Right now, I don’t know if he can distinguish between the two.

What I will tell him, is a decade from now, he could be as lonely as Jake White when it comes to who talks to him.

The game moves on.

Whatever happens post 2027 or 2031, a new guy will arrive and rugby life in South Africa will move on.

This message Rassie will give to his back to back RWC winners is that.

The message I want to give to him is the same.

Once you are gone brother, no one will care for you.

So care now, and be that innovator who is not seduced by the now but who is so articulate in what he wants for tomorrow.

Will Rassie get it?

I don’t know.

I have seen enough to know he won’t, but I have hope, historically, that he will if he is true to his Despatch roots.

What I do know is he will come calling when he is no longer there, which will be embarrassing for who he calls, and whoever takes that call.

Still!

I won’t give up believing that he believes in the game more than he believes in his own self-importance, ego and his his self-appointed cheer leaders.

Boks by 10.

ALWAYS

Next weekend, at Eden Park in Auckland, and in 2027.