Rassie Erasmus tore a strip off the world champions after their ragged first half against Steve Borthwick’s side, a new documentary reveals
South Africa’s World Cup semi-final victory over England, snatched in the dying moments with a long-range Handré Pollard penalty, had little to do with tactics or the cerebral realm. Whereas the win over France a week earlier – with its scrum-from-a-mark craziness – had featured PlayStations and half-time coaching clinics to ingeniously vanquish the hosts, defeating Steve Borthwick’s side was all about the Springboks’ heart strings.
At least, that is how the one-point victory is portrayed in Chasing the Sun 2, the documentary offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at South Africa’s second successive World Cup title.
At half-time in the semi-final, a remarkable English tactical showing had seen the rank outsiders lead by six points. The reigning champions had been unable to deal with England’s aerial bombardment in the Parisian storm. The English scrum was holding strong, Owen Farrell was kicking his goals, and the Springboks had been “strangled and suffocated”, as their head coach at the time, Jacques Nienaber, put it. And Rassie Erasmus, the forthright director of rugby, knew it.
“Firstly, it looks like you don’t want to be there,” Erasmus growled in the changing rooms. “Secondly, you don’t give a f— about giving penalties away. You always just do that [shrugs]. But you gave the f—— penalty away, and you promised you wouldn’t! You promised you’d scrum them; you promised you’d play like it was the last f—— game as a group together. Sort your s— out here and if you can’t play in the second half do the sub now – and other boys will go on. But start f—— getting intelligent. We are only six points behind!
“F—— get dominance. And don’t try and maul them if they [are] f—— you up. We have other plays as well. Come on! Get f—— right.”
Erasmus departed to stunned silence. The Springboks players remained seated, but a spark ignited inside the usually phlegmatic Pieter-Steph du Toit.
“Let’s get up,” the flanker shouted. “We can’t just sit around. F— it, man. Come together. For f—- sake. Are you going to f—— stay or go? Play, get some excitement and talk to each other.
“Everyone’s f—— scared. If you’re afraid, say so! We’ll make a f—— plan.”
Bongi Mbonambi, South Africa’s hooker, has said he had never seen Du Toit like that before. Erasmus added: “He’s never done that. It was almost like: ‘Rassie, get out. Pieter-Steph du Toit has spoken.’”
South Africa returned to the Stade de France pitch, eventually conquering England 16-15 with Pollard’s late penalty rewarding an extraordinary rearguard in which the Springboks’ squadron of replacements, the ‘Bomb Squad’, proved too much for tiring English legs.
The machismo building up to that moment, earning a shot at the All Blacks in a World Cup final, started in the week preceding the England match. The tactics, if they can be called that, were simple. “Show the world how tough you are,” Erasmus implored his players in a team meeting. “We want to rip that c— out of them.”
The director of rugby, 51, called out Siya Kolisi, South Africa’s iconic captain. “Siya, we don’t talk about ‘matching’ their physicality,” Erasmus said. “ F— that. They must match ours.”
And later: “If you take four or five minutes to get into this game, I swear we will make a sub after five minutes. From minute one, we need you to f— these guys physically.”
As ever with South Africa, however, the outlet for their virility is the scrum. Daan Human, the former prop and now scrum coach, drives the Springboks’ scrum weaponisation. It was the impact of props Ox Nche and Vincent Koch at the set piece – against Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler – which ultimately laid the platform for the South African comeback. “Like in 2019, this game is going to come down to the scrum,” Human said in the team room before asking: “The question is, can we do it again?’”
Unfortunately for England, they could. And when the rigours of South Africa’s scrum training are witnessed, the hegemony is understandable. “I don’t believe in scrum machines,” Human tells the filmmakers. “Live scrums only. I’ve never seen a machine in a match. [Scrummaging against us] is not a place you want to be, especially with the characters that we have.”
Human challenges his forwards “to go to the harbour” while scrummaging, urging them to be as low as possible and to hold at that level. “We’re going to be… as low as possible and then stay in there,” he says. “But we’re going to lie like a ship in the harbour.”
That ship proved to be anchored too sturdily for England as South Africa earned themselves a shot at history, becoming only the second side to win consecutive World Cups. For Mbonambi, who had mocked England’s “plastic energy” when celebrating small moments, the emotion of victory was too much; the hooker wept alone in the changing room, consoled only by Erasmus and Nienaber. If Mbonambi had known that in the coming days and weeks he would become the centre of a racism storm, the tears might have flowed in even greater volume.
But, a week later, they would be flowing again, as Kolisi lifted the Webb Ellis Cup at Stade de France. Thanks to Erasmus, South Africa showed the world just how tough they were.
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