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Erasmus: I was an ****hole - Bok boss releases another outstanding team talk
By Ian Cameron
Former Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus has released another one of his Rugby World Cup team talks, in which he admitted that he had been 'an ****hole' in his playing days.
Erasmus shared the video on his Twitter account and it's gone down well in rugby circles.
Erasmus, who has been linked with succeeding Eddie Jones for the England job, gave the speech during Rugby World Cup in Japan.
"Some guys understand - 'shit, I must keep on sacrificing' - these are the guys, those that we say are has-beens, because they don't play a lot of rugby long, those entitled ones.
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"This is that ownership part. You take ownership of this whole thing. S***, I'm always going to sacrifice. I'm honoured, I'm desperate, I get the reward, but s***, I'm taking ownership of this thing.
"I went through two years, and I said it to the Stormers last year, when nobody told me, 'you're being an absolute d***'. I was player of the year, good contract, great money. I was starting every Test match, we were winning 17 Test matches in a row; but a guy called Harry Viljoen, who was a businessman who didn't follow rugby.
"He eventually came in and had to just drop me. Then my buddies started telling. I was like 'why is that guy dropping me? [and they said], 'because you're an ****hole.'
"Because you're so entitled Rassie. You're a little bit of a virus in the team. You're getting everything but you're moaning about training sessions'. I was such a bad person that my wife also told me that.
"So if you don't take ownership yourself about this...this ownership is also about the team.
"If you don't have the balls to tell one of your teammates 'hey, you're being a d***, you're being an arsehole' in this entitled mode, then you're also still not taking ownership.
"Boys, this is something that I'm going to show you later, this is a big part of our team selection. You can be the most brilliant rugby player, but if you're this entitled person, and I'm not saying that there's a s***load of you sitting here, then you're going to go through that."
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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