'I'm not going to moan my arse off': Erasmus fires back at Rennie's accusation

Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus has fired back at his All Blacks counterpart Dave Rennie for accusing his side of walking around in the scrum.

The reaction came about during South Africa’s post-match press conference in Cape Town, following a tense 33-26 win for the home team in the second Test of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series. The result left the four-Test series even at one win apiece.

Moments earlier, at the All Blacks press conference, Rennie had shared his initial thoughts on the scrum contest and how it was refereed by Angus Gardner.

“The scrums were better tonight,” he said. “I think Angus was pretty strong around setting a mark and trying to keep the hookers in the same spacing.

“If the Springboks moved across further left, then he stopped them. We’ll give them a bit of feedback around that; it’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead. So, there’ll be a couple of little technical things that we’ll share again.

“But I thought in the end, both teams were able to play off the scrums so I think Angus did a reasonable job there.”

Those comments were quickly brought to Erasmus’ attention, and were met with firm opposition.

“It’s the first time ever in history that people are talking about us walking around,” Erasmus retorted. “Why would we all of a sudden walk around?

“The first six scrums New Zealand had, every single one collapsed. It was reset, reset, reset, reset. Why is it only on their ball that the scrum collapses every single time? Don’t come with that nonsense and say that we’re walking around and try and put those things out in the media.

“The last lineout was askew, and we contested. I’m not going to moan my arse off about that. If he’s going to start moaning about stuff like that, then they are under pressure.”

The South Africa coach went on to mention various calls in the Ellis Park Test that didn’t go his side’s way, and highlight the yellow card that Lood de Jager received in the 78th minute.

“Don’t try to convince the people through the media, because that’s what happened in the first week; they tried to convince people we slow the game down and we’re not. So if the referees get caught up by that, then it obviously was a plan to get that message out, and we don’t want to stay quiet and just say ‘oh yeah, you’re right, we’re walking around’. We’re not f*cking walking around. We’re scrumming through.

“We’ve never ever been accused of walking around. So I don’t understand it.”

The match ended with the Springboks owning a 75 per cent success rate at scrum time and New Zealand operating at 100 per cent.

Erasmus began his response to the next question by saying: “I apologise if I say things in the wrong way sometimes; I’m not great at that.”

Shortly after, he cited his impassioned remarks and called out Rennie for attempting to push a “false narrative”.

“I would never criticise things that’s brilliant, but they mustn’t talk about things that’s not really bad and try and put a false narrative out there.”