THE MOST SEARING scene in the five-part Chasing the Sun series that goes behind the scenes on the Springboks’ World Cup success last year comes in the wake of their defeat to Ireland in the pool stages.
Rassie Erasmus is not happy. Not happy at all.
He tears into his players at a team meeting two days after the clash in Paris, focusing on some of South Africa’s stars. Erasmus pulls up an image of flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit lying on the ground in apparent pain, his head bowed onto his clenched hands.
“Look at this,” says Erasmus. “You’re in a forgiving, submissive, I’m giving over.
“But a Pieter-Steph like this [Erasmus pushes his chest out] is intimidating. You intimidate me.”
Erasmus questions why the opportunity to move to number one in the world rankings by beating Ireland hadn’t excited his players more, why their body language was so poor when they got a last-gasp chance to maul the Irish over their line.
“There’s a few egos, there’s a few important guys here, too important,” says an agitated Erasmus. “Your head is getting bigger than your ability, that’s always a problem.”
He proceeds to name players who can start preparing for the quarter-final, which is still two-and-a-half weeks away. Siya Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth aren’t among the names. Erasmus then goes in hard on Kolisi, suggesting that the Springboks captain thinks he’s bigger than South Africa.
We jump to a coaches meeting and Felix Jones declares that the Springboks “failed mentally” against Ireland. Erasmus tells the room that’s because Kolisi, Etzebeth and Duane Vermeulen can’t work together. The saga ends with Erasmus marching that trio of “big dogs” into a room and giving them 15 minutes to sort out their divide.
In the end, it’s painted as a key moment in the Boks’ World Cup success as Kolisi, Etzebeth, and Vermeulen agree that any differences of opinion they have will be acted out privately before they go back to the rest of the team with one unified plan.
These post-Ireland scenes show us how hurt Erasmus was by losing to Ireland, even if it was just a pool game.
Etzebeth admits to camera that he “felt so relaxed” despite the defeat, in which he delivered a rare underperformance. Vermeulen could see immediately post-match that Erasmus “was pissed” and that a “shitstorm was coming.”
We see Erasmus on the pitch at Stade de France listening to Zombie being roared in delighted by Irish fans post-match, then Boks boss delivers that shitstorm at the next team meeting.
“For me, there was not enough pain in their faces,” says Erasmus. “There was not enough regret on their faces, not enough ’we fucked this up’ on their faces.”
Clearly, he doesn’t want any similar complacency or lack of energy this weekend in Pretoria.
The pre-match footage ahead of the Ireland game in Chasing the Sun is also revealing, even if we should point out that this documentary series is essentially a Springboks-run show, with Erasmus among the executive producers.
The build-up to the Ireland game starts with a big blow for the Springboks as Malcolm Marx suffers a serious knee injury in training, ending his World Cup.
This cruel news is overlayed with footage and audio from Virgin Media.
“Are we not delighted? The scope for something to go badly wrong from here is off the charts,” says Joe Molloy and then Rob Kearney adds, “That’s the best thing that could have happened.”
It seems unlikely that the Virgin panel said this specifically about Marx but that’s how it’s portrayed in Chasing the Sun, while there is footage of the same punditry crew joking about out-half Handré Pollard getting called up as the replacement hooker.
When the Boks get around to discussing Ireland, the main theme is how they believe Ireland are all about being a smart, clever team.
“They’re number one in the world because they get so much satisfaction out of, we are clever, we are clever,” says Erasmus at a coaches meeting. “And they are clever.”
“It’s almost that that lifts them. When something spectacular works out, like a move with six different fuckin’ lines, they feel like, ‘Now we clever, now we clever, now we fuckin’ smart.’”
There’s interview footage of Nienber as he points out that the “soul of the Irish” is how technical and information-driven they are.
As Erasmus points out to his fellow coaches that “if you don’t know your shit, you can’t fuck them up physically.” He reveals that he wants to go with the 7/1 bench split that had worked so well pre-World Cup against the All Blacks.
Cue more footage from Virgin Media and Newstalk. Matt Williams decries the 7/1 split, saying the Boks are “abusing the bench” while Molloy says the Springboks’ attitude is, “We think we can smash you guys. There’s no real craft to what they’re doing.”
The documentary goes back to various Boks coaches and players defending the 7/1 split before we get a glimpse of one of their pre-match team meetings in which Erasmus shows his players clips from the Irish media.
“I want to show you things here that will probably upset you,” says Erasmus. “It’s not to psyche you up, it’s to get you determined to understand what you’re going to face on Saturday.”
We see Andy Dunne on Off the Ball saying that Ireland need to “out-think it and out-skill” the physical freaks of South Africa. Erasmus pauses the clip and turns to his players.
“Rugby is a physical game. It’s not chess. Fucking go play chess if you want to be so smart. So let them be smarter but please match us physically within the laws, don’t worry, we’ll be smart within the game.”
Next, the Springboks players are shown Off the Ball presenter Eoin Sheahan saying “Growing use of anabolic steroids” without any context before Ger Gilroy chips in.
“This culture is rotten and we need to stop signing players from South Africa,” says Gilroy. “In my view, one of the worst sporting cultures on the planet. They’re supposed to be this big, macho ‘we are the men culture’ when actually all they are are whinging babies.”
What’s surprising is how Erasmus’ players seemingly lap this up.
World-class flanker du Toit says the clips “unsettled me quite a lot” and hooker Bongi Mbonambi goes a step further.
“It got us fucking angry,” says Mbonambi. “The way they see us is as the little country there in the corner of Africa and they think they can compete with the rest of the world with all the best facilities and training grounds. England rolls better off their tongue than us. We were fucking upset.”
And then we see a satisfied-looking Erasmus outlining how it’s better when things are personal.
“Emotional lasts five minutes but personal allows 80 minutes,” says the main man, who reminds his players that “this one is personal” in the final meeting on the day of the Ireland game.
In the changing room before kick-off, Erasmus appeals for an aggressive, confrontational mindset from his men.
“Don’t smile at these fuckers,” he demands and tells Mbonambi to go to the first scrum, look Dan Sheehan in the eye and “tell him you’re going to fuck him up.”
Clearly, Erasmus wasn’t happy with what his players delivered as they lost.
What’s as interesting about the build-up to the Ireland game is what the Springboks decided to leave out of Chasing the Sun.
Before they take on Scotland, we’re treated to lots of specific insights into where they think they can get at the Gregor Townsend’s side.
There’s footage of Jones presenting on the tackling habits of the Scottish players as he tells the Boks, “You know Finn Russell only wants to scrag you from the side.”
There’s detail about the Scots’ choke-tackling technique and how the South Africans can negate that by letting the referee know that their ball-carriers have got a knee to the ground. We even see the Boks scrum-halves practicing shouting this at the ref.
Scrum coach Daan Human presents to the forwards on Scotland loosehead Pierre Schoeman, bringing up a news clipping of Schoeman stating that the Scots’ scrum is now a weapon.
“If you get him down there, he can’t handle it,” says Human, bringing his hand lower towards the ground. “I’ve seen it since his day at the Bulls, you’ve all seen it. Are you going to take him down there?”
We don’t get this detail on Ireland because the Boks knew that they’d face Andy Farrell’s team so soon again and because they don’t want to give Ireland any additional insight ahead of what should be another couple of tight battles.
Still, the riveting documentary series shows us that the Boks portrayed Ireland as a team who think they’re smarter than the South Africans.
They also see Ireland as a side who hurt them badly in the recent past. As the Springboks’ hype video said yesterday, it’s unfinished business for the Boks.
