Rassie Erasmus responds to supposed death threats to Bok scrumhalf Cobus Reinach

Springbok scrumhalf Cobus Reinach has received a supposed online death threat and Rassie Erasmus has taken to social media platform X to address it. 

A user on the platform who goes under the name of Ewen (ew3n_db9) made the threat and referred to the Boks as a gang of thieves. 

“This is obviously not true. Unfortunately these threats were made to Cobus Reinach,” Erasmus responded in a post. 

“It’s not nice and upsets his mom to see things like that said about her boy. But we are not going to whine, we will just move on.” 

Clearly, Erasmus hasn’t, and giving the inflammatory and offensive post more airtime will do little to discourage others of a similar disposition. 

Translated into English the post read: “Dirty son of a b****, I hope that when you return to Montpellier you get murdered by French people on the ground. Gang of thieves, easy to win the title by cheating.” 

Predictably, there has been a lot of anger in France in the wake of their team’s quarterfinal defeat at the hands of the Springboks last Sunday. 

Referee Ben O’Keefe’s handling of the match drew sharp criticism. 

France captain Antoine Dupont was the first to fan the flames. 

“There’s a lot of disappointment and frustration,” he said. “When we watch the match again, there are probably things that will make us even more frustrated. 

“I don’t want to be a bad loser and moan about the refereeing. But I am not sure the level of refereeing was up to what was at stake. [But] that doesn’t take anything away from the South Africans. They played a great game,” said Dupont. 

Former referee Romain Poite also questioned O’Keefe's performance. 

Criticism came far and wide and X proved a popular platform for the French to vent their discontent. 

Even French astronaut Thomas Pesquet joined in, posting: “Rugby is a sport that is usually played 15 against 15,” suggesting the referee had favoured the South Africans.