Cape Town – While Damian de Allende and Malcolm Marx were chewing the fat with the media on Wednesday ahead of Saturday’s Test against England, there was an interesting attendee on the Zoom call: Rassie Erasmus.
SA Rugby’s director of rugby was banned by World Rugby for two matches following his tweets and videos about a number of decisions that went against the Springboks in the Ireland and France Tests.
The conditions of the suspension are that Erasmus cannot be involved in any match-day activities with the team, while he is also not allowed to address the media in press conferences. He may not make any social media posts either about any decision by a match official for last week’s Italy encounter and Saturday’s England showdown.
But that didn’t stop Erasmus from cheekily logging on for Wednesday’s press conference. In line with his ban, he didn’t address the media nor take questions, but his mere presence may have irked World Rugby once more.
Towards the end of the press conference, De Allende was told by IOL Sport that Erasmus was on the Zoom call, and the big centre and hooker Marx just smiled with each other.
The Springbok social media accounts have also posted a few photos of Erasmus at training this week, which he is allowed to attend as usual.
Bok coach Jacques Nienaber insisted during Tuesday’s team announcement media briefing that he didn’t want to get involved in the Erasmus matter, but then went ahead anyway – although he was blocked by Bok media manager Zeena Isaacs-Van Tonder from answering a question from a British journalist about whether he supported Erasmus in uploading videos to social media about refereeing decisions.
“During the week, it’s as per normal and he can be with us. The roles and responsibilities that he fulfilled on match-day have been absorbed within us in the coaching staff. We did that for a year,” Nienaber said.
“In terms of the Rassie ban, I guess there will be a lot of questions about it. I focus on rugby more, but we are a tight-knit unit and everybody knows exactly what is going on – we are open and transparent with everybody.
“For us who know all the facts... I don’t want to say it is disappointing, but maybe disappointing is the right word because when only certain facts go out, then people outside understandably form opinions from those facts... but obviously, they don’t know all the facts.
“So, it is quite sad if you think about it. If all the facts were out there, people would form a different opinion.
“I am not pointing fingers at anybody… I do not want to get involved in this. But for us as a group of players, management and staff, we know about everything because everything is shared with the players.
“Unfortunately things (the ban) went that way, but for us, the main thing is to focus on the rugby and prepare our players mentally for a big Test against England on Saturday.
“There is a lot of confidentiality around this and we can’t discuss things in the media. But we know the facts.
“We can’t control the narratives of other people, but we know what is happening inside and that is all we can control.”
SA Rugby have yet to comment on the ban and whether they would take any further action against the former loose forward, but there was at least some sort of olive branch offered by World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin this week.
“What is important is we are able to move forward in a dialogue with them (SA Rugby),” Gilpin told the BBC’s Rugby Union Daily podcast this week.
“Let’s have a discussion about why certain behaviours are appropriate or inappropriate.
“If coaches or other people involved in South African rugby or anywhere else don’t think the protocols are working, let’s talk about that.
“This is about every referee who is, on a Sunday morning, refereeing kids’ rugby anywhere in the world, having permission to do the job properly, and not having every parent on the touchline posting videos on social media.
“That’s the really important thing in terms of the integrity of the game. The referees will be the first to tell you they welcome feedback. They are really up for those discussions with coaches.
“We have to make sure we protect them in that sense, but our view, and he may not agree, is that he has crossed the line.
“For us, it is really important we reinforce where those lines are for everybody to see.”
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