Former Springboks lock Victor Matfield has joked that Rassie Erasmus is the only chance the All Blacks have of being saved amid their current crisis.
New Zealand Rugby find themselves in the rare state of certainty following the sacking of head coach Scott Robertson last week.
They are also currently without a chief executive after Mark Robinson announced that he would be stepping down and moving to Australia to spend more time with his family.
The departure of Robertson is what is causing most debate, however, and while discussing the head coach role, All Blacks legend Sir John Kirwan decided to poke some fun at Matfield on the Rivals podcast.
‘You will have to pay him a lot’
“I heard Rassie applied for it Victor, I don’t know if you’ve heard that,” Kirwan quipped.
Matfield had the perfect retort, though, responding with, “he’s probably the only one that can save New Zealand Rugby at the moment”, before the Springboks legend added: “Maybe he will come; you will have to pay him a lot.”
Returning to more serious matters, the ex-second-row then provided an interesting theory for Robertson’s failure with the All Blacks.
Much fanfare greed the 51-year-old’s arrival in 2023 but the Crusaders could not repeat his Super Rugby success at Test level.
“All these things – game plan, team culture – that starts with the coach. I’ve seen it. When Heyneke Meyer, who came into the Springboks set-up and was so set in his ways in terms of how he worked with the Bulls players,” Matfield said.
“Unfortunately, a Bulls culture, Stormers culture and even a Sharks culture is so different and Razor coming out of that Crusaders camp, they’ve got a certain way of doing things and they’ve had a very experienced squad for the last 10 to 15 years.
“Maybe it’s just a bit difficult and some of the other guys with different cultures couldn’t fit into that Crusaders culture.”
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Matfield’s shock
Matfield was still taken aback by the decision considering Robertson’s respectable win rate, but that the rumoured rift with Ardie Savea was always going to put him in trouble.
“From all of us in South Africa, we didn’t expect it. There’s no one with a better record in Super Rugby than Razor, the amount of trophies that he’s won – it just shows the quality of coach that he is,” he added.
“I don’t think you will ever get a team dominate world rugby like the All Blacks did for 15 or 20 years.
“He had a 74 per cent win record. Rassie is the best coach of all time in South Africa and he’s standing on 75 per cent.
“It’s pretty hard on him but the moment I saw the article of Ardie Savea not being very happy with Razor, I knew there was going to be trouble.
“Ardie is a well respected rugby player all across the world. It takes a lot of senior players to come out and speak up against the coach. Especially Ardie, he’s not an arrogant guy, he’s a very down to earth guy.”
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