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Rassie Erasmus sends another loaded tweet towards the All Blacks and Foster
By Kim Ekin
Springboks Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus' active week on Twitter has continued after sharing a post seemingly aimed at the All Blacks and head coach Ian Foster.
Erasmus earlier shared his thoughts following Foster's disparaging comments around the ball-in-play time between South Africa and Ireland after New Zealand's 96-17 win over Italy.
There was roughly a two minute difference in ball-in-play time between the two fixtures which the Director pointed out in his first public response to Foster.
He was back for more on the eve of the All Blacks' clash with Uruguay, tweeting out statistics from the 1995 Rugby World Cup final played between the Springboks and All Blacks.
"Sorry MY bad here we go!!" he wrote in a veiled tweet.
"Interesting to see how and where the game has changed since the 1995 World Cup final."
The statistics shared show a ball-in-play time of 32 minutes which is nearly exactly the same as the All Blacks encounter with Italy last week.
By contrast the Springboks-Ireland pool match was roughly 30 minutes in total.
The busy week on Twitter comes as South Africa enjoy their bye week in the south of France ahead of the final round of pool stage clashes.
Erasmus has offered his thoughts on the Ireland-Scotland game and clapped back at media personality Ger Gilroy after suggesting that he preferred to be in South Africa's position rather than Ireland's.
He continued the mind games by following two accounts, the official accounts of Scotland Rugby and Ireland Rugby.
The Springboks players seem to be enjoying down time in Cassis where they have been sharing on social media time with family at the beach in the sun.
South Africa has to await the outcome of the clash to find out whether they will qualify for the quarter-finals with a pool exit still a possibility but extremely unlikely.
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Latest Comments
We beat Wales. Oh wow.
Go to commentsAs has been the way all year, and for all England's play I can remember. I missed a lot of the better years under Eddie though.
Lets have a look at the LQB for the last few games... 41% under 3 sec compared to 56% last week, 47% in the game you felt England best in against NZ, and 56 against Ireland.
That was my impression as well. Dunno if that is a lack of good counterattack ball from the D, forward dominance (Post Contact Meters stats reversed yesterday compared to that fast Ireland game), or some Borthwick scheme, but I think that has been highlighted as Englands best point of difference this year with their attack, more particularly how they target using it in certain areas. So depending on how you look at it, not necessarily the individual players.
You seem to be falling into the same trap as NZs supporters when it comes to Damien McKenzie. That play you highlight Slade in wasn't one of those LQB situations from memory, that was all on the brilliance of Smith. Sure, Slade did his job in that situation, but Smith far exceeded his (though I understand it was a move Sleightholme was calling for). But yeah, it's not always going to be on a platter from your 10 and NZ have been missing that Slade line, in your example, more often than not too. When you go back to Furbank and Feyi-Waboso returns you'll have that threat again. Just need to generate that ball, wait for some of these next Gen forwards to come through etc, the props and injured 6 coming back to the bench. I don't think you can put Earl back to 7, unless he spends the next two years speeding up (which might be good for him because he's getting beat by speed like he's not used to not having his own speed to react anymore).
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