Renowned political editor and sports lover, Peter Bruce, has pleaded with Rassie Erasmus to stop “embarrassing” himself and stop being an “asshole” again.

Bruce, in his Financial Mail column, cited the much-publicised television documentary that tells the life story of the controversial SA Rugby director of rugby, in which Erasmus said, “I will never be that asshole again.”

READ: Are Rassie’s tweets helping or harming Boks?

“On Sunday night SuperSport ran a lengthy hagiographic documentary on the Springbok director of rugby,” Bruce writes. “Erasmus’s view of the world, you would have thought, is already well enough known. He’s an emotional guy who even when he was a teenager somehow knew racial discrimination was wrong. He cries. He shares his feelings. He doesn’t mind making mistakes. He says ‘f*ck’ a lot.

“At one point in the film, after it discusses the comeback from the Springboks in 2018 when they found themselves down 24-3 to England after 15 minutes, Erasmus says, of his growth as a coach: ‘I will never be that asshole again. The relevant one. The correct one. It hurt my family, it hurt my future, it hurt my team, it hurt South Africa.’

PETER BRUCE: Dear Rassie, please stop tweeting

“Yet hardly had the players left the field on Saturday and he was being that asshole again. Being the relevant one, being the correct one. The ref, Wayne Barnes, with 101 rugby Tests under his belt, needed to be taught a lesson, just like Berry did.

“But while I remember thinking, watching Erasmus’s takedown of Berry, how right he was to have done it, all I could think of now as eight whiny, sarcastic tweets criticising Barnes rolled off the Erasmus phone and onto Twitter was: ‘Please stop, this is just embarrassing.’

“In Greek mythology, the gods are always easily angered and vengeful, their inner child always dominant. Erasmus, seriously good coach that he is, is not a god and he should stop trying to behave like one.”

MORE: Boks have discipline issue for Italian job

Photo: Chris Ricco/BackpagePix