Director of rugby Erasmus (RSA) - 'We don't want to be a team the world loves'

Comments from South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus at a media briefing on Monday after his side beat France 29-28 on Sunday to advance to the semi-finals where they will play England at Stade de France on Saturday, 21 October.

Rassie Erasmus, director of rugby

On how he moulded South Africa's change of style following a loss to France in 2022: 

"To be honest with you and I am serious when I say this, I will never forget that post that last French game (November 2022), I tweeted a few tweets and a lot of people said it was controversial but I can remember my caption there was 'we will have to adapt and make things clearer for referees, we can't just rely on mauling, scrumming and close-contact work where it is very difficult for the referee to make the correct decision'. Because it's very dynamic and it's busy and there's a little bit of grey areas there. 

"So, we had to adapt. Also to try and score tries through more open, fluent, running rugby. And you could see in our try-scoring tally there's a lot scored by our backs, more than our forwards. 

"If you only rely on a certain aspect of the game which is very tough for the referee to referee and he gets two (decisions) wrong but you only relying on those three or four of five opportunities that you get, 50 per cent of your opportunities are gone. But if you fire shots in open play, general play from the top of lineouts or counter-attack, it's clearer decisions for the referee and easier to make.

"As a team we don't want to be this wonderful playing rugby team that the whole world loves, but we do want to score tries."

On his and South African rugby's change in approach to refereeing:

"As you know, we have changed our whole approach. I think I've mentioned it. Actually this morning we chatted to (former referee) Nigel Owens again. We conceded six penalties. 

"Since we've changed our way, no matter if we are correct and the referees are wrong, respect must always be shown. 

"Our whole motto has been let's respect the referees. It works both ways. He's going to make mistakes, we're going to make mistakes. And the frustration we had in the past, and the lack of communication because of various things with Covid ... that is in the past. There's a nice protocol in place, it's easy to communicate to them. 

"I wouldn't like to comment on what they (France) said about the referee [in the quarter-final]. We are just working on accepting that there will be mistakes on both sides, which is something that we had to get right and we had to earn the respect back and I think it's slowly happening."

On the relief and joy of victory versus France but thoughts are already turning to the semi-final: 

"It was two teams that tactically, physically and mentally tried to really push one another to the edge. 

"Yes, a relief to beat team that is so well coached, which afterwards I had a beer with and I must say the respect that he showed and the way he spoke to us afterwards was really humble and sincere. 

"Yes we did enjoy it then the afternoon off for the players. We do our work and tomorrow morning we announce our team internally."

On being surprised the quarter-finals were quite so open and full of tries: 

"I was surprised how in the quarter-finals they were so many tries scored. That was something different. I always thought it would be a grind, it was a grind, it was a squeeze, it was tight at the end.

"But I guess when we go into semi-finals, again defence, scrum, mauls, tactical kicking and sometimes brilliance like [Damian] Penaud and [Matthieu] Jalibert and those guys can do and the same with the English team, from [Owen] Farrell right through to [Courtney] Lawes. They've got tremendous players - [Ellis] Genge - who can do wonderful things during the game. 

"But again, as it get's closer to that final, and hopefully we are in that final if we get past England, those deep mechanical, fundamentals of the game will always start getting more and more important." 

On how South Africa have managed their players' workloads very carefully: 

"Our average player is 162 minutes in the World Cup. 

"Matches before the World Cup, where we played Rugby Championship and we played Wales and New Zealand again, I know people got frustrated when we were chopping and changing and I am not saying I am right [but] luckily, touch wood, up until this morning we don't have any injuries from last night's game. 

"I couldn't talk for other teams but I do know us and the England team will definitely have a close match because their numbers of spreading the load is not so much higher than ours."

On not listening to the suggestions that this is a relatively weak England side: 

"If we think England is bad because people from outside say that they are not doing well... our reality is the truth, not the reality that people create outside our camp. 

"We know from the [English] Premiership, a lot of our players play against them and we know [Steve] Borthwick is an excellent coach which he showed at Leicester and as a captain and a player for England.

"It will be a very tough test against a team that hasn't lost a game and more or less conceded the same amount of tries and racked up the same amount of points.

"If you look at England, they scored 19 tries and got 180 points and we scored 26 tries and also have 180 points. Then if you look on the points conceded side, they've conceded six tries, we've conceded seven and they've conceded 63 points and we're 62. So, you can know how close this game [will be] - if you just look at stats and I know stats don't always tell the whole picture."