SA director of rugby Rassie Erasmus, in his new Daily Mail weekly rugby column, publicly thanked all of England’s club rugby owners for helping pay the salaries of his best Springboks. He should also have been thanking England’s club coaches for turning players from club buys into international assets for the Springboks.
Erasmus, when he took over as Springbok coach in 2018, ensured that he was given a mandate to select any eligible South African player regardless of where the player was based. It would prove the biggest differentiator in turning the Boks from seventh-ranked chumps into glorious World Cup champions.
Erasmus was at the forefront because of his tactical appreciation of how to get the best out of the South African playing squad. His identification of players was also on the money, but he got to choose from a pool of players his predecessors did not have access to because of a SA Rugby Union ruling that prevented overseas-based players being selected for the Boks.
The decision back then to exclude the very best players from Springbok selection was one that was always going to hurt the national side because the pulling power of South African players into France, the UK and Italy is so huge.
South African players are also popular signings into the Japanese professional league.
Erasmus, in his column, effectively mocked the English professional rugby system for being so charitable to South African players and self-destructive when it comes to the development of their own players. He used an example of Sales Sharks scrumhalf Faf de Klerk, who is among the highest paid players in the English Premiership. De Klerk, wrote Erasmus, was keeping a talented English No.9 out of the Premiership. Erasmus, in a taunt, thanked England for paying De Klerk’s salary and said that the Springboks and SA Rugby were the ultimate beneficiary.
The club owners in France and England love contracting South African players because, for the most, they get such professionalism, work ethic and value. Long may it last.
It was provocative for SA’s national director of rugby to use an English tabloid newspaper and online platform to do his talking, but in the last month he has done all his talking through the Daily Mail as he steps up his efforts to find favour with an English rugby audience.
It is no secret that Erasmus is eyeing an England-type national rugby directorship after the 2023 World Cup in France.
That is another topic, but on the subject of a charitable English rugby system, Erasmus has nailed it when he talks about the commercial benefits of SA’s current Springboks playing for some of the best club teams up north. What he didn’t mention is how many of the current Test Boks based overseas are better players than when they arrived overseas.
Cheslin Kolbe transformed his game at Toulouse, Leicester’s Jasper Wiese emerged from a youthful pack of loose-forward pretenders to be a Test regular in 2021, Lood de Jager added a dimension to his play and leadership, the Du Preez twins Dan and Jean-Luc are improved players, Cobus Reinach is better for going north, Vincent Koch is a brute at tighthead and De Klerk is a more rounded scrumhalf for his five seasons up north.
The club owners in France and England love contracting South African players because, for the most, they get such professionalism, work ethic and value. Long may it last and may the SA Rugby Union never again entertain the prospect of only picking locally based players for the Springboks.
If that happens the Boks would be out of the top five within 18 months.
South African rugby, nationally, has been the biggest beneficiary of the exodus of the elite players to the north and Japan. What has hurt the South African game is the second tier drain and the loss of experienced players who are not going to play for the Springboks.
Nationally, though, the biggest winner when it comes to overseas-based South African talent is the Springboks coach, and that is how it should always be.
Mark Keohane is the founder of Keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media. Twitter @mark_keohane
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