Category: South Africa Rugby

There will be no love lost between rivals in reruns of World Cup pool matches also including Wales against Fiji

A 50-point frolic against the Fiji second team this will not be. Scotland welcome the Springboks, champions of the southern hemisphere, champions of the world, champions of the sort of rugby to make grown men cower, to Edinburgh on Sunday – and they know this is when it gets ­horribly serious.

It has been faintly amusing, faintly absurd, to watch South Africa’s head coach, Rassie Erasmus, try to mount a charm offensive during the week, all touchy-feely, we-want-to-be-loved one minute, all seven-one-split-on-the-bench, hear-our-roar the next. The Springboks know how to win rugby matches; it seems winning hearts is their next directive.

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Admiration rather than adulation follows South Africa but their controversial coach is launching a charm offensive

South Africa are mounting a charm offensive this autumn. They have won the last two World Cups, their 2021 series against the British & Irish Lions and, in September, clinched a first Rugby Championship title since 2019. Listen to Rassie Erasmus, however, and it is clear the Springboks believe hearts and minds still elude them.

Outside of South Africa, at least. At home they are deified, most of all Erasmus, but the head coach believes that, in the eyes of the rest of the watching world, they are tarred as the villains of the piece. “It has been years, from the Bakkies Botha era, that we are bullies who don’t really care what people think,” he says. “But we do. I care what people think about the players because they are very good guys.”

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