Rassie Erasmus admitted South Africa’s past mistakes in criticising referees, then turned up the Rugby World Cup heat by accusing France of simulation.
The Springboks’ rugby director lit the fuse on Sunday’s last-eight battle with hosts France in Paris by attempting to atone for his side’s own past transgressions, while also pointing fresh fingers.
Erasmus admitted South Africa did not show enough respect to referees across the tense British and Irish Lions series in 2021, where his hour-long social media video critiquing officials performances sank like a stone with World Rugby.
But the wily operator then offered a cute observation on France, suggesting Les Bleus’ players look to make the most emphasis when in receipt of tackles that could be on the cusp of illegality due to height.
“What they do well is that, when they get close to the high hits, they really show that to the referee,” said Erasmus.
“I think they’re very clever at that, but they’re not a team that lives on the dangerous edge.
“I think they’re straight-up forward, they don’t play with tricks, they just physically man up, and that’s the kind of team that we respect.”
South Africa have received no cards at this World Cup and are among the least penalised teams in the competition. Erasmus insisted the Springboks have worked hard to get referees back on side.
“For us the first word is respect, I think definitely we got it wrong in stages, especially when we had the year off with Covid and we went into the Lions series,” said Erasmus.
“Last year I had a phone call with Nigel Owens and I said, ‘We really want to get this right, we don’t want people not to like us. That is not the reason for us, maybe sometimes having differences and doing things in a way just to get a response’.
“We wanted to know how things worked and I must say what we learned from that conversation is that no matter if we are right the respect you show to the referee you will get back from that referee, even if he makes mistakes or you make mistakes.
“We also had to adapt our game a little bit. If you only rely on maul, it is difficult to referee a maul. If you only rely on a scrum it’s difficult to referee a scrum. We had to change our game to make it easier for referees.
“So it’s not always this thing to work out who is or isn’t dominating, that there are free-flowing passes and open tries, which was really honest. So yes, no cards, I think we have the fourth lowest penalty count. We had to earn it back, we had to earn the respect back and I think it is showing at this stage that it works both ways.”
