The game was almost over but, right in front of me on the Twickenham touchline, Rassie Erasmus kept working. South Africa’s director of rugby, who had coached the Springboks to victory in the 2019 World Cup with a side representing every corner of a divided country, kept leading his players against the All Blacks. Using coloured cones, hand signals and verbal instructions, via the water‑carriers, Erasmus was relentless.
His intensity echoed the interview we had done the previous night when Erasmus described his fear of embarrassment, his reputation as the most controversial coach in world rugby, the pain of living with an alcoholic father and why his role in the transformation of South African rugby mattered more to him than winning the World Cup. Eighty minutes into our conversation, Erasmus turned towards New Zealand at Twickenham – his team’s last match before the World Cup.
After inviting me to the game Erasmus spoke quietly in the empty Springbok team-room: “The expectation of performing is always heavy. It’s nerve-racking. We are nervous before tomorrow’s Test against New Zealand. It’s going to be so close I’m not sure who will win. We’re nervous before the World Cup. New Zealand have belief – just like Ireland have belief as world No 1. France have belief at home. We also have belief.”
Erasmus’s face broke into a wry smile as the four best teams in the world are on the same side of the draw. That anomaly, caused by World Rugby’s hapless decision to make its tournament seeding three years ago, added another edge to the Springboks’ latest seismic fixture with New Zealand.
“They don’t think they’re going to smash us tomorrow,” Erasmus said. “New Zealand are the same as us. They know a big battle is coming.”
Twenty-four hours later even the London rain stopped in wonder as the gleaming scoreboard read: South Africa 35, New Zealand 7.
That record Springbok victory was another Erasmus masterclass. An extraordinary display of forward power had obliterated the All Blacks while the Springbok backs – exemplified by the 20‑year‑old Canan Moodie who escaped poverty and gang violence to emerge as a potential World Cup star – turned a thunderous fixture into a dizzying romp. South Africa scored five tries and laid down a brutal marker of their intent to retain the World Cup.
Some pundits were indignant that Erasmus and his head coach, Jacques Nienaber, had cooked up another surprise with their bench rolling out a juggernaut of seven forwards and just one replacement back. Erasmus was accused again of undermining the “spirit of rugby” but Ian Foster, New Zealand’s head coach, hailed the “magnificent” Springboks.
The revelation of Twickenham matched the riveting book Erasmus has written with David O’Sullivan, the renowned South African radio journalist, which begins with an assertion: “I may come across as a loudmouth, opinionated, arrogant, unrepentant … people think I’m extroverted, but I’m not. I find social occasions difficult … I’m a quiet, uncomplicated person.”
O’Sullivan told me that “uncomplicated” was the only word he disagreed with in Erasmus’s self‑assessment. He still coaxed from the deeply private Afrikaner an immensely moving story, rooted in the small town of Despatch, where Erasmus grew up obsessed with rugby but scarred by his father’s alcoholism. He often watched helplessly as his drunken dad “slapped himself on his legs over and over again … it upset me and I wanted to protect him, so I would lie next to him and hold his hand … Some nights you felt he would never stop”.
After we relive those traumatic days Erasmus remembers the recent braai (barbecue) he had in Reading with his mother and two sisters – the eldest of whom lives in England. “We spoke about the past and I said: ‘Ja, it was frightening.’ But the more we spoke the more we also said: ‘Remember how great other things were?’ It was very tough but I learnt about life.”
There were also times, when his father was drunk, that a 10‑year‑old Rassie drove the family in his dad’s car. “We did desperate things to get through it,” he says.
Erasmus describes his father as an “enlightened” man often troubled by the injustices of apartheid which he witnessed while working for the Bantu Administration department where he issued the hated “dompas” (the identity document all black South Africans had to carry). His dad was also horrified by the mocking white laughter which followed South Africa’s first necklacing (when a petrol-soaked tyre was placed around a black man’s neck and set alight) near Despatch in 1985.
“I wouldn’t say that drove my dad to drink,” Erasmus says, “but when you do something you don’t want to do every single day, you probably want to be numb.”
Erasmus was wounded by his dad’s jibes but he is philosophical now. “I’ve been sober when I said bad things to people and that’s even worse. I don’t think he really wanted to hurt me.”
O’Sullivan believes Erasmus’s bold work in transformation is driven by his desire to avoid the embarrassment he felt around his father. It instilled a compassion to help black and white players avoid any embarrassment caused by the “quota” system which based selection on skin colour rather than merit.
Erasmus began his groundbreaking transformation work in 2013 when he set up his Elite Player Development (EPD) pathway to identify promising under-15 players. Disadvantaged youngsters were nurtured consistently. Erasmus stresses that the coaches he brought in to develop the EPD, including Nienaber, made considerable contributions in transforming South African rugby to the point where the racial mix of the Springboks is no longer an issue.
“I wanted to help people avoid embarrassment for what we’ve done – not just apartheid but how we tried to fix things which ended up embarrassing black and white people. I always believed that, in South Africa, if we use all our skills and backgrounds we will be unstoppable.”
Makazole Mapimpi and Lukhanyo Am, two of the 2019 World Cup final stars, were discovered by Erasmus six years earlier. Like Siya Kolisi, whom Erasmus chose as the Springboks’ first black captain, they shone in the pressure cooker of Yokohama as England were dismantled.
“My greatest moment was not holding the World Cup,” Erasmus says. “It was watching those players create and score tries in the final and trust each other. They felt it was a privilege to represent the country and they came through immense pressure with a smile. The EPD was my biggest achievement.”
Erasmus insists that appointing the inspirational Kolisi was pragmatic rather than symbolic. “I’d love to tell people it was this wonderful story. I knew Siya from when he was 18 but I didn’t see him as a future Springbok leader. People say I was politically aware. I wasn’t. I was aware of embarrassment. I was aware that the best captains are usually close to the scrum – like Duane Vermeulen and Siya. I would have chosen Duane but he played in France. It would have been the biggest fuck-up of my life if I’d made Siya captain because he was black. It would go totally against everything I believed about embarrassment. So it was not a political masterstroke. Siya was just the best guy to become captain.”
The curse of embarrassment was felt acutely by Erasmus during the 2021 British & Irish Lions tour of South Africa. After the Lions narrowly won the first Test, which Erasmus believed had been blighted by poor officiating, he was incensed by a perceived lack of respect from the referee towards Kolisi.
When he struggled to receive a response from match officials after the Test he made a video featuring 28 contentious clips. He sent it only to six people involved in the officiating but in the introduction he implied it could be shared with Supersport, the television channel. “That was my biggest fuck-up,” he says. “Not making the video but saying those words.”
After the hour-long video was leaked on the internet, World Rugby concluded he had brought the game into disrepute. Erasmus was suspended for two months and banned from match days for a year. The punishment devastated him – as did the reputational damage.
“It was very painful but I still think the video was one of the best things I could do for the Springboks at that stage. It was never meant to go public but the words in the video asked the officials to please take us seriously before the second Test. I wasn’t guilty of distributing the video. I was found guilty of not preventing the video from entering the public domain. The purpose was never to embarrass anybody but the video hurt a lot of people because it got out. That’s what I’m ashamed of.”
I ask Erasmus again if he leaked the video. “No, I did not,” he says firmly.
Banned from Springbok games for a year was “awful”, he says: “That’s what you live for – getting on that team bus and sitting in the changing room. For that whole year I was a bit depressed.”
Erasmus resumed his duties on 5 November 2022. “It was the game against Ireland, which we lost [19‑16 in Dublin], on my 50th birthday.”
He grins ruefully. Erasmus hates losing but, having coached Munster, he loves the Irish. “We lost matches at Munster but those fans wouldn’t leave the stands. They supported you to the end – even if they gave you hell in the pub. And when Axel [Anthony] Foley [the former Munster player and head coach who died in 2016] passed they showed me how unbelievably precious life is. The way they celebrated him was so genuine and honest. The Irish are exceptional.”
The professionalism of Irish rugby also left a profound impression. “When they became world No 1 [in 2018] they had 160 professional players. South Africa had over 1,000 professionals and we were fourth.”
Ireland and South Africa are now ranked one and two in the world and it seems a travesty they meet in a group match on 23 September. Erasmus is immersed in planning for that clash but he insists his reputation for trying obsessively to control games is unwarranted. He has always hunted for an edge – whether using coloured lights on the stadium roof to relay messages when coaching the Cheetahs, being a water-carrier running on to the field to help the Springboks, or packing his bench with a Bomb Squad of forwards.
“People see it like that,” he says of his puppet-master persona, “but ask my players and you will see it’s our [joint] plan. When they’re on the field we try to help them. All coaches do it. I don’t think it’s controlling. It’s all about our togetherness.”
Erasmus prefers his director of rugby role away from the limelight of being head coach. “It’s not me,” he says of the perception he enjoys attention. “It’s difficult to explain because people will ask: ‘Why are you doing this interview?’ It’s definitely not for them to like me. I just would love people to understand how hard all of us work to make South African rugby succeed. I also want to take pressure off our coach and players. For me personally it doesn’t look too great but South Africa is very complicated and people are rugby crazy. If you don’t protect the Springbok coach and players they can lose focus.”
As he showed against New Zealand, Erasmus loves “the thrill of being involved”. He says: “When I’m not with a professional team who have real expectations I feel lifeless. I am at my most alive during the World Cup because it’s nerve-racking but the adrenaline is like nothing else. Once it’s over I get terrible withdrawal symptoms.”
A week later he sends me a voice note from France: “It was lekker [great] to win like that against the All Blacks. But the World Cup is the ultimate thing so that game will be forgotten.”
South Africa, steered by the brilliantly unconventional Erasmus, look primed for history as they strive to retain the World Cup and edge ahead of New Zealand by winning it for a record fourth time. But there’s still time for the boy from Despatch, who lost his father and is now a shy but generous man who often feels misunderstood, to reflect more deeply: “Winning the World Cup is nice and for South Africans that trophy is massive. But, for me, the most beautiful thing is seeing what we have created as a team. Look around the dressing room and that’s what you see – the trust and the togetherness which matters most of all.”
Rassie: Stories of Life and Rugby is published by Macmillan.
