22 Sept 2023
What did you make of the yellow card that became a red in Scotland vs South Africa?
SB: “The lack of consistency of yellow cards and red cards is for me now as a couch potato watching on TV sometimes it’s very frustrating.
“In a World Cup final getting a red card is not ideal, it's not great for spectacle, that's why they changed the rules. But if there was no intent from my perspective and it was just a bad executed tackle it's very rough for me to take. It is a physical sport, it is a quite aggressive sport, it's a game of trying to dominate the opposition legally.
“A red card does influence the outcome of the whole game because rugby is at such a high level now. Every little piece on the chessboard plays a vital role in defence and attack. It is rough on the players and rough on the team.”
Do you think World Rugby has got it right now? Do you think they got the balance right, taking into account the need to protect the players?
SB: “It comes back to intact or malice. And for me, if there's no malice and it was just badly done, then it feels a bit rough. Rugby is a part of evolution.
“There is a need to make the game safer, but we are not at the final product. We're tinkering with a lot of things. We haven’t seen the final product but we're moving towards a safer game, that is good.
“We’ll have some hiccups and some frustrations. Are we getting it right? No but I see the intent. I see the way we're moving towards.”
“In five or ten years’ time will the game be safer? Hopefully the answer in general is yes. Secondly, will it be a better spectacle? Yes, I hope so.
“Currently it's not where we want to be but hopefully we’re moving towards a better game. A lot of sports like football and cricket are evolving to make them better.”
How did South African rugby get into such a dominant position?
SB: “There was a perfect storm that created all of this. Firstly, a coach who wants to be judged on the World Cup. I remember him asking in one of our meetings who was the number one side in 2006? Who was the number one side in 2014 and 2018?
“No one could remember but you can remember who won the World Cups.
“So the point that he is making is that Rassie Erasmus will be judged by the outside public and most of the world on performances during the year, but for him the most important competition to win is the World Cup. From his perspective, he's taken a four year view.
“Even then he's rotating players. Even when they are on form, where other coaches would say that this is my starting 15 and I'm going to pick them as much as I can every weekend.
“He sees it in a different way, so he's evolving that selection policy. Then secondly, within the rugby environment, we moved away from Super Rugby and moved to the URC and the Champions Cup.
“That fits us perfectly from time zones. It also prepares our players to play in a very different way.
“Although Super Rugby is beautiful and you spread the ball a lot, it's not the same as test match rugby. Lastly, we can monitor our players a lot better and they have brought back players that have played in Ireland, England and France.
“We are gaining through players playing in different competitions which is vital to our success and then the knowledge of every player that you play against. Because it's different seeing someone play on TV than actually playing against them.”
How do you rank this team compared with other great Boks sides?
SB: “There may have been sides with a better win percentage ratio, but once again we don’t judge ourselves on that metric. We judge ourselves by World Cups.
“Rassie doesn’t just give caps away. It is giving players experience and putting them in a structure that helps them perform. For me, this is the best team including the coaching staff to players to medical staff – in Springbok history. It may seem quite arrogant to say that, but it is the truth.
“The South African public becomes extremely impatient or unsatisfied with a performance like that against Scotland but don’t forget the last game we've played was against Argentina in Nelspruit.
“We need to be patient, give the guys a bit of slack. We go to Murrayfield and beat Scotland by a two-scoring margin, and it's one of the best Scotland sides that I've seen.”
Ireland hadn’t played a warm up game either before New Zealand and it showed didn’t it?
SB: “Some of the players haven’t played in a couple of weeks, but the fact is, if you look at Ireland, they are a phenomenal structured side. Some of their thoughts is better than some of their individuals.
“They've got great players, but if they start making errors, they struggle and they have a lot of errors. It’s the same with Springboks. The thing is they don't have a proper dominant scrum to outmuscle the opposition. That's their strength but if we don't get penalties from scrums and can't win line outs then any game of rugby becomes very tricky for South Africa and so what do people say?
“Try to match them physically, don't give them momentum and match them in the scrums and line-ups, that's what normally happens.
“The problem is you can mash them for 60 minutes but if Rassie then puts a 7-1 split or 6-2 split on the bench, you're scrumming two fresh packs that's hungry and very dedicated to the scrum. If you take the second test against Ireland, we couldn't use our bomb squad because we had injuries. Then we have to find a different way of playing.”
Are South Africa the ultimate closers in matches?
SB: “We're taking a gamble that players won't get hurt or get injuries. We were very fortunate in the last couple of years. It is a gamble you're taking, but it does work. Take just this year what the bomb squad did if you take the points before and the points after or the last 30 minutes, I think the bomb squad had a 14 point difference from when they came into the game.
“That's huge because the reality is it’s the margins and this is why I refer to all the teams that are very tightly matched. For 60 minutes, they go toe to toe but the differentiating factors are the last 20 and what kind of impact you can have.
For example, England against New Zealand, I thought they were going to close out the game. They brought George Ford on and fought it. They didn't get dominant from that perspective and they lost momentum in the last 20 minutes.
You take this game this week against Australia. I mean, England scored in the 79th minute and then Australia went deep and then they scored in the corner and won the game. It’s very tough on England but if they didn’t score, the headline would be that Australia played a fantastic match.
The viewpoint towards the game would have been different but because they scored late in the match, Steve Borthwick is under pressure again. That's the reality of sport. Everyone wants a team that wins.
Talking about licking lips, South Africa must be looking forward to England as you say they're one of the big three that you always test yourself against in the Northern Hemisphere. What's your thoughts on this weekend?
“The one thing we always say is be careful of someone that is licking their wounds because they've got a point to prove. England under Jamie George looks like a very good side with Marcus Smith pulling the strings from that perspective. They've got dangerous players.
We’re not tricking them, but the Aviva Stadium is an unbelievable place. For me personally, it is one of the best places to play rugby and so it is always a special occasion to play against England with a Bocs shirt on. We never underestimate England going there and it's going to be extremely exciting.
What team is Rassie going to pick? We don't know. Is he going to pick it tomorrow or will the squad only be announced on Thursday? We don't know. Is he going to go 8-0 split, 7-1 split, 6-2 split? That's exciting. You never know but from a South African perspective, what I know is Rassie won't let the standards go.
Be careful of someone that has just taken a loss in the last minute. But from England’s perspective, I know the players like Steve [Borthwick], although the media doesn't always relate to Steve. I think he's looked after the players extremely well. They like him and they want to play for him and they're going to feel the pressure to perform for Steve.
You mentioned that, he is under pressure given that's five defeats in six and four in very similar circumstances, not being able to protect a lead going into the last 10 or 15 minutes. Can you see him staying on? Can you see the RFU thinking actually this isn't good enough? Or is it a question of time?
“Didn't Clive Woodward go through something similar? I truly believe if people are a little bit more patient then things will turn around from an England perspective.
“For me, it's the margin between winning and losing is so small. You need one moment of madness or a superstar changing the game around and the belief would change. England doesn't look like a side that's lacking belief. Sometimes I just feel like momentum decisions doesn't always go their way or they make silly errors.
“Watching the New Zealand game, it felt like when they went into the lead, they should have kept that accelerator going. It's not just winning by three, not just winning the game, but it's actually increasing that lead.
“I would rather ask the question, what does England need? To go to New Zealand and push New Zealand so hard in two test matches and not coming away from a win is hard for them but all the matches they've played and lost it's not massive losses.
“It is within a seven point range so now the question is I would rather go internally and say okay what does Steve need or what does the team still need to just take one more step because if I take that one more step, the performance and results would have been totally different and I don't know the answer to that.
I don't think it's just Steve, it's a whole system you have to look at. I mean a lot of teams have psychologists. I don't know what the strategic differences are. For South Africa, when we’re behind, we bring on the bomb squad or do something different that they haven't tried before.
Is one solution maybe to stick with players who are playing well? Marcus Smith springs to mind.
SB: “That might be, but if you look at George Ford, he is a great rugby player but he doesn't have the same kind of flair as Marcus Smith.
“The urge or bravery to keep on attacking against New Zealand will change when George Ford came on. Maybe not just George Ford, it doesn't just take one guy, but a whole group, maybe we're going to close the game down.
“Against a team like New Zealand that is playing at Aviva, they're going to stop running more and a lot of times it's not to go, okay, let's defend our lead. Sometimes it lets increase our lead from a mentality perspective. That might have been the better option of keeping Marcus at 10 on both games.
In terms of the Springboks, you talked about the quantity of players that have been blooded over the last 12 months or so. Who for you are the emerging stars that we are beginning to see and who perhaps will become household names in the not too distant future?
SB: “The only position where we were traditionally a very forward dominated team. We tried to dominate from a practice perspective but things have changed as we've picked players that don't fit our mold. People like Cheslin Kolbe for example and Aphelele Fassi.
“Damian Willemse can step off both feet and do silly things. The one thing I feel from a South African perspective is that we sometimes play the traditional way of actually not running around the man or we normally run at them. That has changed a little bit.
“Pieter-Steph du Toit is a very direct player but what is amazing is seeing like he had been doing this year, because he had more freedom and is actually throwing the ball out of the back. He can still run very straight but that is the crux of our tactic.
“The more options you have, the more decisions you can make, the harder it is to defend against because he wants soft shoulders. There’s a big question on who is going to fill in at hooker.
“It’s a very important role to fill. We've got great looseheads and we've got amazing locks. You can play any combination. Now we've used other players to kick to post. Full-back pushing for positions.
“Cameron Hanekom. He is a phenomenal talent. He is very, very exciting that people won't probably know.
“They don't even know if he's going to get a lot of game time, but he has been phenomenal for the Bulls.”
You talked about the great teams. I mean, you've got New Zealand who are your traditional foe, they? Historically, it's always been South Africa, New Zealand. Is that lessening slightly given that your focus is more on the Northern hemisphere?
SB: “Traditionally, it’s been the All Blacks. They're in front of the Haka, they've been our arch rivals and beaten us more than we've beaten them. That is definitely, will always be there. Then you've got England.
“I guess if you look at the team that's been the most consistent and still hasn't made a semi, I think Ireland during before World Cups and even in World Cups, is a team that is very well coached and has phenomenal talent that plays a different style.
“That's the three teams that we look at and then of course a team that plays similar to us and that's France. They are the four teams that always will get our blood boiling. Excitement. Unfortunately Australia isn't there. They're going through a rebuilding phase.”
Do you think the game on Saturday could be a turning point psychologically for them under Schmidt?
“Look, if I think about Joe Schmidt, he'll take any win any day now because I mean to have a New Zealand coach for Aussies again or coach it and there's been rumors of they need to get an Australian to coach an Australian side. But I mean Eddie wasn't a great success I would say.
“For me It's tough. Australia's reality is rugby in Australia is not great. The kind of numbers of kids playing, they're competing with a lot of different other kinds of rugby or footy or cricket, basketball.
“It's quite far down the pecking order. The win could be a turning point. The unfortunate thing is they have very good players, some great, but they don't have depth.
“If you look at other players from other nations like Ireland, maybe don't have as many players, but my goodness, they spend a lot of time, effort and capital to evolve those players' skillset that they can compete and be extremely good on the international stage.”
One player who looks pretty classy is Joseph Suaili. That's his first game of union. He fitted in pretty comfortably, didn't he?
“I mean, the ball is almost similar. There is overlapping within the game but he was very impressive.”
The game needs a strong Wallabies side, doesn't it?
“100 per cent. Look, not that I'm saying it's a shame the power of rugby has changed, but you take Argentina for example. It is amazing that Argentina has come through from semi-finals.
“They're always seen as a minion in the world view, but they have made the semi-final, they had an opportunity for the first time to win The Rugby Championship.
“As a spectator, when you can't determine who's winning and the probability of a match is 50-50, then it's nice to watch. If you always know, if you always can predict who's the winner going to be then it's not a great spectacle.”
Warren Gatland under pressure isn’t he? Can he turn it around or is he finished?
SB: “I don’t know. Everyone has changed coaches, except Ireland and South Africa. It's a new group of players. Does he have the same relationship that he had with the old group? Probably not.
“Has the game moved forward from that time to when he's still approaching to where he is now? Probably. Has he evolved? I don't know. I don't see a lot of it in the game, but it's hard to judge. It's unfair for me to make a judgment when they keep on getting dominated and they don't have the experience, right?
“It’s different when an Elywin Jones goes to the ref or makes a team talk than a guy that doesn't have that stature and that presence, I guess.”
Do you think they should be looking, as you said, it's a four year cycle and that's his target, and judge me in three years time in Australia rather than, you know, there's that balance to strike, isn't there?
SB: “I guess so. In rugby terms, your forward-looking view is all or nothing. What New Zealand has done well over the past in the 15 years, they’ve promoted from within.
“You've got the core of your DNA running through multiple generations of players and coaches, but they talk the same language and that's why I think it's pretty hard.
“It's like any CEO that comes in, you can change it. The CEO fires a lot of people and changes to his own rules and if you don't play by his rules, you’re out.
“I think when you've got a core, cultural DNA to the team, you can be successful over multiple generations and not just one group.
“It’s what the Springboks have done well. In 1995, the coach went. In 2007, the coach went and it was the same in 2011 and 2015. Now, if we win or lose, we fire the coach or he moves on.
“It just shows that if you keep a group of players and a group of coaches together that is with the right culture and the right value system, I think then the performance will come for itself. Maybe not on day one or the first year, but eventually the performances will come. But that is not just for rugby, it is for any business and organisation.”
What do you predict for Wales vs Australia?
SB: “With Australia, they can get themselves up for a game and then get punished the next weekend and I think Australia just needed that confidence and belief that they can do it.
“I don't have a lot of hope for Wales this weekend but going to Cardiff, you never know. I would bet Australia to win by 10 points. Warren Gatland will be fuming after that loss against Fiji because he would say you weren't up for it.
The one thing you have to be up for is Fiji’s physicality. It’s really tough to judge a team when they've just lost and they're really lost. But I mean, that's ten in a row.
“Saying that, England has lost five out of the last six but the performance was different. The effort was different. It was very fine margins. They just didn't take their chances I would say.”
Dupont is outstanding, isn't he? I mean, have you seen a better all-round player?
SB: “He is outstanding. The one thing that I see what he does extremely well is not just his phenomenal talent, but he inspires people around him. Now, a lot of people were inspired by, I guess, their voice or talking to players but he does it through playing.
He brings magical moments.
“Funny enough, I would normally be excellent in a few teams, but this particular one, can't, New Zealand have great individual players, but it’s not the New Zealand of old. It feels for me as an old rugby player. mean, and it's always that France-New Zealand rivalry from 2007.
“If I look at France, they had this flair. They still have that, but they've got much better structures. It's just not just about an individual.
“Dupont is phenomenal but they've got a lot more structure to the game, a lot more belief, the way they kick, the way they analyze teams, it's quite different. That's what makes them so difficult to play against.”
How do you counter Dupont then? Can you stop him?
SB: “The problem with France is, Dupont is phenomenal but you've got other players that are pretty good as well. The problem is, it's like back in the day when we played at Jonah Lomu as South Africans, we tried to nullify John Lomu but everyone around him scored.
“Our best stat was Jonah Lomu has never scored against the Springboks but everyone around him scored.
“The reality is unfortunately you can't game plans to nullify a player but with Dupont at nine, it’s very hard to nullify him. You would actually want him to run with it because then he takes away space for other players. The problem is he is extremely strong. If you miss him, he's going to punish you.”
France vs New Zealand prediction?
SB: “Normally I would back a southern hemisphere team but I would have France to win between five to 10 points.”
Andy Farrell is up in 2025, do you see him as an ideal successor to Borthwick?
SB: “I don't know. Maybe, well, he's not financially driven, so I would have said that money is right, he would move, but I don't think he's, well, he's not the guy that is inspired by the amount of money that he gets paid. If the challenge is right and the structure is right for him to perform, I think it is nice, the kind of pressure he has at Ireland is different than in England.
“With Owen playing in France, that makes it a lot easier for him to come back, if he wanted to. I know the coaches at England, or most of them, I do think they're very close to turning things around. They might not be this tour or the next one but I do think for now it looks like the players want to play for Steve although the media or the public might not see it that way.
“It's hard because people can't relate to Steve. It wasn't different for him as captain of England. As a captain and as a teammate, he was extremely funny. The media doesn't see that. He was my roommate on my skiing trips so I'm biased towards him. I'll say this, the dry sense of humor, as a South African, the British are extremely witty and funny but it’s in a British way so I've got to love Steve and still do.
“But he just flourishes in that environment but sometimes I just want to shake him and say let everyone see the other side of Steve.”
Your message to England is, keep the faith for now?
SB: “Well, culture is different. It's like if I look at football, like, I can't, hey, they swap cultures, like they, in the football side, if you don't perform in three or four five games.
“There's guys owning a club and they're getting rid of a guy after five or six performances. But culturally, they change a lot quicker.
“The general sense is if he has five or six losses, get him out of here and replace him. He had such a short time to take over the team from Eddie.
“There is a point to say he is good. Now people will not say, well, he's a good coach. People are going to say, well, is he good enough at international level? Now the question then you have to pose is does he have the right players? Does he have the right support staff?
“Was it a personal thing that his support staff walked out? Was it a cultural thing? What was it? We don't have the information. We didn't know, we started working together, we don't see things eye to eye.
“The quicker you make the cut, the quicker you walk away, the better for the team because if coaches don't get along, it ruins the culture.
“Now I'm not privy to that information, why they agreed to separate, but for me you have to give them a bit of time, and hopefully, once again, it becomes right.”
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