Rassie exercises his right to reply to All Blacks Rennie’s statements

Test week number one of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry has started with Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus exercising his right to reply in the media.

Responding to calls from New Zealand coach, Dave Rennie, that referees speed the game up and police time wasting, Erasmus made it clear that the Boks play to the letter of the law.

The Springboks are set to face the All Blacks at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Saturday in the first of a four match test series dubbed Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry.

Erasmus brought his legal adviser, former referee Jaco Peyper, to the first media conference of test week.

Erasmus felt the need to respond to comments attributed to Rennie that were aimed at referees, and hinted at time wasting, especially at lineouts.

“What you do up until that lineout you can pray if you want to you can go down on your knees if you want to huddle you can huddle there is nothing in the laws that says you can’t huddle.

So, we have got 11 languages which we need to make sure everybody understands the lineout call so you can huddle when the referee gives the mark then within 30 seconds you must form the lineout so there is no law that says you can’t huddle.” says Erasmus.

Erasmus’s comments are a calculated gamble, but one he felt the need to make given the strict protocols regarding talking to refs in the test window.

“I don’t think it is a tactic, I think it is an obvious thing if you want to get something out you have to get it out here because you can’t really talk to the referee,” Erasmus added.

Peyper was also on hand to explain that the referees assigned to Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry are beyond reproach.

“Let’s take the first three referees that referees the next three weeks in South Africa they got these appointments based on experience and based on what they have done in the last twelve months they are incredibly strong characters they are not push arounds so I think they get annoyed when we tell them how to referee the game because they have earned the right and they know the game,” And with that the Springbok coach felt he had responded in the media to Rennie’s public comments.

Now it was time to get down to what really matters, the test series against South Africa’s greatest rival in rugby.

“When I grew up, we watched the Kavaliers series and the flour bombs and we only watched test matches because there wasn’t other international test matches when growing up as I am that was the games where you knew the Murray Mexteds and the Zinzan Brookes and they were our heroes as well Danie Gerber was my hero but also I wanted to play like Murray Mexted,” Erasmus explains.

A mutual appreciation for the All Blacks but on this day also a response to their coach and his bugbears ahead of the first test.