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Erasmus: I was an ****hole - Bok boss releases another outstanding team talk


Jessie Kriel and Rassie Erasmus
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Former Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus has released another one of his Rugby World Cup team talks, in which he admitted that he had been ‘an ****hole’ in his playing days.

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Erasmus shared the video on his Twitter account and it’s gone down well in rugby circles.

Erasmus, who has been linked with succeeding Eddie Jones for the England job, gave the speech during Rugby World Cup in Japan.

“Some guys understand – ‘shit, I must keep on sacrificing’ – these are the guys, those that we say are has-beens, because they don’t play a lot of rugby long, those entitled ones.

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“This is that ownership part. You take ownership of this whole thing. S***, I’m always going to sacrifice. I’m honoured, I’m desperate, I get the reward, but s***, I’m taking ownership of this thing.

“I went through two years, and I said it to the Stormers last year, when nobody told me, ‘you’re being an absolute d***’. I was player of the year, good contract, great money. I was starting every Test match, we were winning 17 Test matches in a row; but a guy called Harry Viljoen, who was a businessman who didn’t follow rugby.

“He eventually came in and had to just drop me. Then my buddies started telling. I was like ‘why is that guy dropping me? [and they said], ‘because you’re an ****hole.’

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“Because you’re so entitled Rassie. You’re a little bit of a virus in the team. You’re getting everything but you’re moaning about training sessions’. I was such a bad person that my wife also told me that.

“So if you don’t take ownership yourself about this…this ownership is also about the team.

“If you don’t have the balls to tell one of your teammates ‘hey, you’re being a d***, you’re being an arsehole’ in this entitled mode, then you’re also still not taking ownership.

“Boys, this is something that I’m going to show you later, this is a big part of our team selection. You can be the most brilliant rugby player, but if you’re this entitled person, and I’m not saying that there’s a s***load of you sitting here, then you’re going to go through that.”

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Phantom 1 hour ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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