Rassie Erasmus: ‘Egos were out of the way, Munster was the most important thing’

When Rassie Erasmus arrived in Munster in the summer of 2016 to assume the role of Director of Rugby at the famous province, he was in many ways entering the unknown.

Famous in his native South Africa both as an outstanding player and coach, he didn’t enjoy the same level of recognition on these shores. Recognising there was ground to be made up, he happily joined a meeting of the team’s key background personalities.

“Myself, Jacques (assistant Nienaber), Axel (head coach Anthony Foley), Felix (Jones), Jerry (Flannery), George (Murray, Performance Analyst), Garrett (Fitzgerald CEO) and Niall (O’Donovan (team manager) all came together,” he recalled yesterday.

“We all sat together and said, ‘boys, how are we going to make this a smooth transition?’

“I want to give Munster credit for that. We sat with the senior players, the senior player group, the ownership group.

“Even in terms of the coaching responsibilities, we really tried to share the stuff so that Felix and Jerry started taking it over.

“I came in while Axel was here through a really rough time but he put his ego aside and said ‘how are we going to make this work?’

“The moment you do that, you have got a good chance.

“We made sure that the players fully understood how things worked. They sat in on the coaches’ meetings in the mornings. There are a lot of things that we did behind the scenes to make the transition as smooth as possible.

“Egos were out of the way, Munster was the most important thing.”

Now, sooner than many had expected or desired, the time for another transition involving Rassie Erasmus is about to take place. Johann van Graan is due in Limerick next week and with work permits and other formalities hopefully out of the way, ready to take over. Once again, all concerned are intent on making it a seamless transition.

“Johann and I have been in contact since it was announced,” said Erasmus. “He was here for a week. We have been exchanging emails and telephone calls. I know him pretty well. It won’t be a case that I am totally off the radar when I am leaving. He is coming next week, probably with the Springboks for the Ireland game. We will try and have a chat then, and he quickly gets the grasp of everything. There is a good chance that I will still be here while he is here and the Dragons game on Friday is my last only because there isn’t another game for three weeks.”

Aware that coming from South Africa to Munster in mid-season wasn’t exactly the ideal scenario for van Graan, Erasmus stated that “Munster were pretty level headed with that”. “When they head-hunted the coach, it was one of the main things that was discussed and he was told ‘you are going to come in here mid-season you must understand everything’. It mustn’t be a total change. What is your philosophy? How do you see those kinds of things? That box has been ticked and from my side, it’s really important. Players want to know who is calling the shots and selecting the team. We will make sure that happens.”

Describing him as “a wonderful player and a privilege to have him”, Erasmus confirmed that Simon Zebo will be included in the team to meet the Dragons at Musgrave Park on Friday.

Making his debut for the province will be the new arrival from South Africa, Chris Cloete, by all reports a fireball of an openside flanker.

“Copey (Robin Copeland), Chris and Jack (O’Donoghue) will be the loose trio starting,” added Erasmus, accepting that Andrew Conway, who got a red card in the defeat by Connacht last week, will not be available: “I don’t think they’ll just dismiss it. Hopefully, there’s a process going through that it might have been reckless, that there was no intent to hurt anybody.

“I feel if you go for a high tackle and you have a swinging right arm, and you wanted to hit a guy in the chest and you hit him on the neck, then that was reckless, but I feel if you jump into the air and turn your back, you can’t disappear, so surely if Andrew lifts up his elbow, the guy’s head would have hit him in the ribs? So his intent wasn’t to hit him in the face.

“I understand why they won’t take that into account because then everybody will start pretending like it was an accident. I know that Andrew didn’t do it on purpose but if that happened to one of my players, I’d probably go ‘that’s a red card’.”