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The odd gift Manu Tuilagi gave Rassie Erasmus which still stumps him
By Ian Cameron
After the largely acrimonious fallout from the 2021 British & Irish Lions tour of South Africa, Rassie Erasmus wasn't exactly most popular figure on the global rugby scene.
He was roundly blamed for the leaking of a 62-minute video diatribe about Nic Berry's performance in the first Test of the series, an allegation he firmly denies.
The 49-year-old served a two months ban and is still barred from attending Tests in an official capacity for six more months. The controversy has died down but he was - and probably still is - a man that divides opinion.
Months after the Lions tour, South Africa toured the northern hemisphere as part of the Autumn Nations Series and after their defeat to Eddie Jones' men, two England players sent Erasmus a gift.
Joe Marler sent him a bottle of wine, an obvious token of good faith from one unorthodox individual to another. But the other present, from Manu Tuilagi, still stumps the Springboks director of rugby, months later.
"Do you think Manu Tuilagi will read this interview?" Erasmus asked journalist Nik Simon during his exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.
"After that match, Joe Marler sent me a bottle of wine. That was lekker because me and Joe Marler are the same kind of guy. We are not suit-and-tie guys. But Manu Tuilagi gave our team manager a teddy bear and asked them to pass it on to me.
"I still don't know why. If he was calling me a cry baby, that's funny, he got me. If he was taking the p***, I like that. If it was sincere and it was meant for my daughters, that's kind. I would love to know."
The controversy around the video still dogs Erasmus, who has himself admitted he fears it will forever tarnish his name, despite the fact he is adamant that he didn't leak the video that eviscerated Berry and his officials.
Berry said he and his family had suffered an "extremely difficult time" after Erasmus released the video which made waves on social media.
He told a World Rugby disciplinary hearing into Erasmus's misconduct: "My family and I have endured a significant amount of distress and we will only have negative memories of the whole experience.
"I feel that Mr Erasmus engaged in a character assassination of me on social media.
"I have spent many years trying to build my reputation as an international referee and in the course of his video which was posted online, Mr Erasmus has caused it immeasurable damage."
Erasmus says he hates the image of him that has been promulgated in the media as a result of the debacle.
"I hate the fact that overseas people hate me. I'm actually quite a sensitive guy. People think I'm a bully. I'm not. Ask anybody that knows me. I liked it when I was known as the happy guy that people saw at the World Cup. I wish I could be known as that guy again."
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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