Rassie Erasmus is sticking to his guns, publicly defending controversial social media posts that he says are not aimed at highlighting officiating inconsistencies. DYLAN JACK reports.
Erasmus joined Springbok head coach Jacques Nienaber at Tuesday’s team announcement press conference and for the first time addressed questions related to his ongoing video-supported social media posts about refereeing decisions.
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The director of rugby has been lambasted as a sore loser for posting a spate of short videos that clearly highlight inconsistencies in the officiating in the recent losses to Ireland and France.
Erasmus took to his Twitter account on Monday night to defend himself and gave no indication that his posts were going to stop any time soon.
After being questioned on the videos on Tuesday afternoon, he argued that the tweets can best be understood from a South African perspective and that fans are attaching their own narrative to what he puts out on social media.
“People form their own opinions and I understand,” said Erasmus.
“We’ve always been really close to fans. If you go and look at the tweets, it’s actually for South African fans to understand that there is something that some guys are doing really well, which we don’t understand.”
Erasmus went on to explain a few of the clips, saying that Cheslin Kolbe needs to adjust his tackling technique and that sometimes passes that appear to go forward can be ‘optical illusions’.
“If you go and read the tweets, people immediately attach something to the narrative they want to put out there.
“I don’t tag people or say it’s the referees. I don’t say anything like that. I’m saying that these are the things that we must fix. If someone doesn’t want to see that, unfollow me, mute me, but surely there are South African supporters who would like to know where we are going and where we are getting it right and wrong.
“It’s not having a go at the referee. I don’t think Wayne Barnes would ever make bad decisions. He is the number-one referee in the world, the most experienced referee in the world. It’s obviously something on our side that we have to fix. If people put their own narrative to it, I can’t control that.”
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