South Africa's Rassie Erasmus begins mind games with England

No sooner had South Africa dumped World Cup hosts France out of their own tournament on Sunday in Paris than director of rugby Rassie Erasmus was switching his focus on semi-final opponents England in his own unique way.

The 2019 World Cup winning boss is famed for his activity online on X, where he uses the platform to drop subtle hints and potentially get in the mind of his opponents. That has been done in some frivolous ways during the course of the tournament, like solely following Scotland and Ireland before the two faced each other in the final match of Pool B. Well he has opted for the same ploy this week by now only following England.

It is hard to believe that Erasmus is going to spend the next week poring over England's social media accounts in order to gain any kind of tactical advantage, but it does nevertheless send a message that he is focussed on his opponents this weekend and focussed only on them.

This is not exactly as hard hitting as mind games go, but it is just a subtle poke ahead of what is surely going to be some slightly more heavy-handed swipes over the coming week.

Erasmus has not yet addressed the upcoming semi-final, although Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber did after the victory over France, describing the challenge as "massive".

"I think it’s going to be a nice challenge," he said ahead of a repeat of the 2019 final. "In knockouts anything can happen, like tonight I followed the England game when we were on the bus here. Also they (England) had a healthy lead and then Fiji came back and then they also pushed it right to the end. I think knockouts are going to be small margins right to the end."