1
Nienaber's 10-word answer when quizzed post-game on Erasmus
By Liam Heagney
Rassie Erasmus was banned from attending Saturday’s match at Twickenham but the Springboks director of rugby still cast a shadow on proceedings, be it at the post-game media briefing, the cancelled half-time Wayne Barnes event, or tweeting earlier in the day about his supposedly positive dialogue with World Rugby.
First things first. Jacques Nienaber thought he was all done when a final question in the English part of the head coach’s after-match conference just had to be about you know who. “Did Rassie have any input during the 80 minutes, was there any communication?”
A ten-word answer was all Nienaber would give before proceedings moved onto Afrikaans. “No, we’re not allowed to talk to him here, unfortunately,” he said about his boss, who would have likely watched the match back at South Africa’s Lensbury hotel base less the three miles away by road.
That was the final mention of Erasmus on a busy headline-making day for the supposedly exiled DoR that began with SA Rugby releasing a media statement reporting on his Thursday meeting with World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin and Phil Davies, the director of rugby.
They are due to convene again soon judging by the messages Erasmus then posted to Twitter, his first comments on the social media site since a tweet the previous week appealing to South African fans shortly before he was busted with his two-day match day ban.
“Thank you WR and let’s move on,” he wrote, except the legacy of his sarcastic tweeting about referees had an unfortunate sequel at Twickenham later that afternoon. The match programme had stated that the RFU were set to honour Barnes for becoming a centurion Test referee by introducing him to the crowd at half-time.
That plan, though, was binned for fear there could be a negative reaction from Springboks supporters given that Barnes, who was going to be at Twickenham with his family, had been in charge for South Africa's loss in Marseille to France which set Erasmus off on Twitter.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Wallaroos captain reflects on Black Ferns’ success with sevens stars
3
Springboks flyhalf's latest injury worry
4
Initial Immanuel Feyi-Waboso injury update does not sound promising
5
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
Go to comments