Erasmus stokes the flames ahead of first Irish Test

As the Irish players and coaches do their utmost to duck and dodge any questions about some verbal hand grenades coming out of the South African camp, Rassie Erasmus has continued to operate in the only way he knows how.

A few days on from giving his prediction of what the Irish matchday squad will look like on Saturday, the Springboks’ head coach reported for media duty in Pretoria today with a metaphorical saucepan and spoon.

Among the highlights, a tease that there could be a late switch to a 7:1 split on the bench.

The World Cup-winning coach showed his cards early this week by naming his team this afternoon, with Grant Williams and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu the only two backs among his replacements.

“There are one or two niggles, so there’s a possibility for a 7:1 as well but we’ll look at that on Thursday and I don’t want to elaborate on that too much,” Erasmus trailed.

The build-up to this series has been littered with some good natured mind games, mainly coming from the Boks camp, and it appeared to reach a tipping point when former Ireland international Simon Zebo said how his ex-Munster boss “hates” Ireland, a story he later suggested had been taken out of context.

And Erasmus suggested that the Irish media had been the ones stoking the flames.

“It’s the same as when we play the All Blacks and when we play big teams. I think the rivalry is more from their media side than from ours.

“I think sometimes maybe they don’t 100% understand the South African sense of humour, why we find something funny, and sometimes it’s quoted out of context. Take Simon Zebo as an example, the guy phoned me and says it (his comment) was on a podcast, we had a few beers, made the craic and he said that.”

Sitting by Rassie’s side was Eben Etzebeth (below), whose own comments about Ireland ruffled some feathers on these shores in recent months.

The Sharks lock made headlines when he claimed Ireland had got ahead of themselves when they defeated South Africa at the World Cup, adding that 12 of the Ireland players told him that they would see each other again in the final.

To this day, no Ireland players have claimed responsibility for it, but Etzebeth doubled down this afternoon when asked for more details.

“Yeah, the Irish media definitely targeted me after that incident,” Etzebeth said, before adding that his figure was definitely correct – give or take.

“Look, I said what I said. It was after the game and I see a lot of them said ‘how could I count exactly that amount?’. You just give an estimate because it was definitely not less than six or seven, it wasn’t more than 20 of them. I just gave an estimate.

“I said what I said. We’ll never after a game tell a team ‘we’ll see you in the final’ if there’s so much rugby still to be played. Maybe that was their way to say they think we’re a good side and we might make it all the way through, but people definitely interpreted that a bit wrong and took it a bit out of context.”

Even by his usual standards, Erasmus (below) was in rare and loose form this afternoon. History will show a direct correlation between his form at press conferences and the size of the game ahead.

On the difference he’s seen in Ireland in the post-Johnny Sexton era: “The ref has got it much easier now.”

On whether Jacques Nienaber is his sleeper-cell in the Irish rugby system: “Jacques phones me every night and tells everything about Ireland.”

Joking aside, the South Africa boss was honest and engaging on the dynamic of his former right-hand man Nienaber now working alongside the majority of this Irish squad on a daily basis in his position as Leinster senior coach.

“Look, rugby is a professional game. Certainly, he will implement things there that worked for us here. Some of them you can clearly see. Some of them are working, some of them are not working because players of countries and cultures are different, and coaches are different.

“One thing I can promise you, I will never put Jacques in a position where the people he is working with and the team he loves, which is Leinster currently, thinking he would in any way helps us.

“But, I also trust him not to tell them the name of moves and calls and those kind of things. I’m not worried about that.”

Similarly, he gave his serious answer to what makes the 2024 Ireland team different to the 2023 version, and why he predicted “the small one from Munster”, Craig Casey, could get the nod at scrum-half this week.

“I always said when we played against Johnny (Sexton), he so frustrated us but hell, it would be nice to be in his team. I guess I want to say we have respect for him and how he plays, how he could command games and how he could command respect.

“But this young fly-half (Jack Crowley) is not scared. He plays it on the gainline, he goes for the cross kick, he doesn’t shy away from tackling.

“I’m not sure if they will put the small one from Munster… Casey or Murr (Conor Murray) with him. Maybe Casey because Casey and him (Crowley) play together.

“At that age, you don’t feel the pressure of Test match rugby so much until you actually realise what you’re part of. Sometimes that’s good.”

It’s eight years since South Africa last beat Ireland, while Erasmus has been in charge for two of those three defeats.

Much has been made of South Africa’s poor record against Andy Farrell’s side, but Erasmus rubbished any suggestion that they’re dwelling in it, in the only way he knows how.

“From their side, they probably have unfinished business to try and get number one. We don’t talk like that.

“We analyse players, we see how they perform in the URC and European Cup, then pick our team from players we think can do the job for us. We train really hard. We try to stay in our reality but our reality is we’re playing at home against a team that has beaten us. All the games were really close, they deserved all of those.

“But it’s never ‘we’ve got a score to settle’.

“I’d rather take a World Cup, two World Cups and a British & Irish Lions series, and take the three losses,” he added.