Rassie Erasmus opens up on meeting All Blacks coach, ‘not with the referee’

This season Rassie Erasmus has been candid about his view on World Rugby’s new match officials communication protocol, which he has suggested doesn’t stand to reason.

In summary, coaches can now only have an alignment call with the referee before a match if both coaches agree to meet and attend together.

Erasmus has recently admitted that there has yet to be one pre-match meeting with officials this season, and ahead of this Saturday’s second Test against the All Blacks, he again highlighted that it would be a pointless exercise.

“In my opinion, it’s impossible to discuss something with the referee with the other coach present,” Erasmus said on Tuesday.

“I’m going to say, ‘Listen, we are concerned about this in the scrums,’ and he’s going to say, ‘But we do this in the scrums’.

“You might say, ‘These guys really clean out well at the breakdown … will you be looking at that?’ But you can’t have that discussion in front of the referee because then the opposition coach knows that’s what you’re looking at.

“So what do you discuss with the referee? Boys, are you going to play within the laws? The laws of the game are the laws, so it’s almost impossible.”

Rassie Erasmus focused on letting the ‘main thing stay the main thing’

This Saturdays’ Test will be officiated by Georgian referee Nika Amashukeli, but the Springboks are rather focusing on what they can control.

Erasmus reiterated that he had no issue having an informal catch up with All Blacks coach Dave Rennie, which he plans to do once again this weekend, but doing so in a formal capacity with the referee is off the table.

“Dave and I had a beer (after the Ellis Park Test), and we’re going to try and catch up on Friday for a beer in Cape Town,” Rassie Erasmus commented light-heartedly. “But without the referee.

“In my opinion, there’s no logic behind two coaches meeting together and discussing the laws with the referees.”

Match officials for the remainder of the Test series