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Erasmus linked to England top job

TheOvalBall

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https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/erasmus-linked-to-england-top-job/

Rassie Erasmus has reportedly held talks with the English RFU to discuss the possibility of replacing Eddie Jones as England head coach.

Erasmus coached the Springboks to the 2019 World Cup and Rugby Championship double, claiming the Webb Ellis trophy with a 32-12 win against Jones' England in the World Cup final.

He has since stepped back to focus on his responsibilities as SA Rugby director of rugby, with former assistant coach Jacques Nienaber stepping up as the new Springbok head coach.

However, according to Sunday newspaper Rapport in a piece written by highly-respected journalist Hendrik Cronje, Erasmus has apparently held talks with the RFU, who want him to take over from Jones when the latter's contract expires at the end of 2021.

This is unthinkable really. I guess SARU are waiting for Nienaber to fail to install Deon Davids as the coach. Black coach, black captain. Their dream scenario.
 
Eddie is too stubborn for his own good and the good of the country. He has his strengths but has some obvious weaknesses that he should be challenged on by the RFU.
 
Eddie is too stubborn for his own good and the good of the country. He has his strengths but has some obvious weaknesses that he should be challenged on by the RFU.
He's so stubborn, he'll probably refuse to leave when Erasmus enters camp and then subsequently 'select' Rassie at 8 (or scrum half)...
 
I can understand if reports are true RE may well fancy a well paid Head Coaching job against the sport v politics which sadly is SA sport at present.Or that is the impression I get as an outsider.
I would welcome him as an appointment as he is a great coach.
EJ is always going to be a marmite coach but I think generally he has improved the England national team.
 
We will see.

England rugby media and it's fans love to think about what ifs and if those what if's don't happen exactly how they want they will cry and throw their toys out of the pram.
Sad fact really, they are as stubborn and it's why really you need to be stubborn to succeed.

Rassie will have to decide if extra money will be worth it considering he now has legend status in SA, even with the political situation, not like when Eddie took over a team that couldn't make it out of the pool stages or following a head coach with 47% win rate like he did with AC in SA, this is a team that went to the RWC final, the pressure to win the RWC in 2 years will be enormous.

England rugby isn't exactly a safe job
5 head coaches in 17 years (+ Rob Andrew as caretaker)
Same as SA.

It's a poisoned chalice, I guess the big plus would be if it does go wrong you get a bigger pay out.
 
Well it's not beneath the RFU, Eddie Jones, John Mitchell, Matt Proudfoot... The last 3 appointments they made was snatching guys who were under contract in SA.

But there were 2 big reports this weekend, and both of them seemed a bit far-fetched to me. 1 report was that Rassie would take over from EJ after 2021. And the other report was that SA would join the 6 Nations after the 2023 RWC.

Seems a bit unreal that both these reports would come out on the same weekend.
 
The reports were fueled further by a picture of Rassie meeting the RFU performance director at Murrayfield that's probably also why Rassie, had to make a Twitter account to deny this.

I honestly thought that Twitter account was a parody though! The videos he posted superimposed with this corny inspirational/sad song was seriously tickling my spidey senses to think it was a parody, I was not prepared to think this could come from an official platform but it turned out to be true, yikes. I sincerely hope it was just Rassie not knowing **** about Social media because, oh dear lord if that was one of the Springbok pr guys then fire that guy immediately.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RassieRugby/status/1226528939721531393

He's like sorry for the poor editing, yes this is me! (something a parody account would say) he could have backed it up by posting a video of himself confirming the account, but instead he posted a compilation tribute video of himself with that song, it's highly questionable.
 
Must be a slow news day/weekend in South Africa

It was. But the reason why people are up in arms about this, is because of the Newspaper that broke the story first, The Rapport, an Afrikaans Newspaper that only publishes on Sunday. It's a very reliable newspaper. That's why people were worried, and still are....
 
I don't think there's any need to worry until the RFU make an official announcement.
We get linked to every coach in world Rugby. If the press were to be believed then Gatland, Schmidt and Edwards would all be our head coach atm
 
When Eddie Jones had his first press conference as a Stormers coach the rumour of the RFU approaching him sprang up.
Are you going to accept the England job offer Eddie?

"Mate i woke up with Table mountain in the background, im staying." - Eddie Jones saying something like this about Table Mountain and why he is staying.
Then one week later it was announced.

The other thing is that as Heineken mentioned, Rapport (The newspaper) are very reliable and accurate, i will even take it further and say i have never seen them report anything that did not turn out to be true when it comes to breaking rugby news, i have had a suspicion that they have undercover informants in the rugby circles because they break stories months in advance and then when SARU finally decides to announce what was reported months ago then is already the worst kept secret out there.


With that said im 99% sure Rassie is stayin. He said it so himself and Rapport did not say that he accepted the offer.
 
Difference between "snatching" a Club head coach and another International Head Coach.
I have rarely heard of teams poaching another top teams Head Coach.

For Eddie and Mitchell really the English jobs was a obvious step up.
Same for Rassie when he was at Munster.
 
When Eddie Jones had his first press conference as a Stormers coach the rumour of the RFU approaching him sprang up.
Are you going to accept the England job offer Eddie?

"Mate i woke up with Table mountain in the background, im staying." - Eddie Jones saying something like this about Table Mountain and why he is staying.
Then one week later it was announced.

The other thing is that as Heineken mentioned, Rapport (The newspaper) are very reliable and accurate, i will even take it further and say i have never seen them report anything that did not turn out to be true when it comes to breaking rugby news, i have had a suspicion that they have undercover informants in the rugby circles because they break stories months in advance and then when SARU finally decides to announce what was reported months ago then is already the worst kept secret out there.


With that said im 99% sure Rassie is stayin. He said it so himself and Rapport did not say that he accepted the offer.

The fact that Rapport made this revelation, is what is worrying to me. Along with Matt Proudfoot now also in the England coaching setup.

But Rassie has been very honest with the SA public since he returned to SA, and I find no other reason to doubt what he said. The fact that he went so far in creating a twitter account to make a statement about this so quickly after the story broke, makes me a bit more at ease, that Rassie knew that he had to quash this very early, and by using social media he knew it was the fastest way to do it.

The fact that SARU wasn't available for comment, does seem like they either don't know about this, or that they haven't had a discussion with Rassie about this beforehand.

Either way, I think Rassie will be staying, and his plans and ideas will be properly implemented before he leaves (if he does). It's not like him to abandon his post when the work isn't finished.
 

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