Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus knows a thing or two about trying to piece together a side that is not only composed of different races and religions, but also find themselves based all around the world.
Most of his players earn far greater wages at their European and Japanese clubs than when they play for the national team. But yet Erasmus has forged a culture where playing for the Boks remains “the biggest thing”.
Cricket has yet to reach the scale of rugby, but it is fast moving in that direction with the growth of lucrative franchise T20 Leagues becoming more prominent causing players to choose club over country.
Proteas coach Shukri Conrad and CSA High Performance Manager Enoch Nkwe therefore spent a day with Erasmus and his coaching staff at the Bok alignment camp in Cape Town on Thursday to see how they do it amongst a host of other matters.
“Listening to and going through the presentation that Rassie and the coaches did, it’s all about the common threads that we find across both formats. We might not have put a lot of these things in a documented form necessarily, but the languages are pretty much the same,” Conrad said.
“And again, what I find really interesting is just the implementation of certain things. Where, again, playing for the Springboks has got to be the biggest thing, playing for the Proteas has to be the biggest thing.
“And if that can be the one thing that you’re going to really hone in on, then I think, which is the case with the Springboks and which is what we want to establish with the Proteas, playing for your national side has to be the biggest thing.”
Danko @ProteasMenCSA and good luck in London 🤝🇿🇦#Springboks #ForeverGreenForeverGold
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Conrad is certainly leaving no stone unturned as he attempts to prepare his Proteas team for their assault on the World Test Championship when they meet Australia in the final at Lord’s next month by tapping into the mind of double-winning Rugby World Cup coach Erasmus.
“Yeah, look, I mean, it used to be a month away,” he said. “It’s now next week when we leave for the UK for what is our biggest final ever, I’d like to think.
“I think it’s been, for all of us, it’s been really inspiring (being part of the Bok camp).
“I think if you look at the history of the Springboks and if you look at the recent past: two successive World Cups, back-to-back potentially a third.
“They obviously must be doing a lot of things right, and we’d like to see what they’re doing right and then learn from each other as well.
“I think it’s great just rubbing shoulders across different codes. It’s not only coming here wanting to learn from them, it’s us almost sharing ideas, and that was always the intention when Rassie and I first started chatting, was just the cross-pollination, if you want, sharing of ideas and learning from each other.
“And then obviously, how important do you think this is with, you know, if you look at the greater picture of many of our national teams representing South Africa across the world, trying to fly the flag higher.
“I think it’s important that, and I know there’s a throwaway line or slogan, but stronger together, I think it’s exactly that, you know, we can all be stronger together and sharing in national pride is the same across every code.”
