Sir John Kirwan has hailed the brilliance of Rassie Erasmus as he compared the “different philosophies” of the Springboks and All Blacks head coaches.
The 60-year-old has, at times, been a fierce critic of South African rugby and some of the innovations of their boss.
However, even Kirwan held his hand up after the Boks visited Wellington and put 43 points on New Zealand, inflicting their worst-ever defeat.
That result came after Erasmus made mass alterations to his backline – five personnel and one positional – a decision the ex-wing initially thought was ‘panicked’.
Conservative Razor
In comparison, Robertson has generally preferred to err on the side of caution, opting for continuity and keeping changes to a minimum.
“The amazing thing about Rassie, under that pressure, he doesn’t fold – he just does what he wants. He changes the team and does a whole lot of different stuff, and wins,” Kirwan said on the Rivals podcast.
As Erasmus experiments, knowing that they need depth and some younger players to come through ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup, Robertson has been far more conservative.
The 51-year-old has received criticism for his decision to stick with certain players, such as Rieko Ioane, who have not performed well for a consistent length of time.
But Kirwan believes that it is a player rather than a coach issue with the current head honcho simply not having enough talent at his disposal to follow the Springboks’ path, according to the former Italy and Japan boss.
“I don’t think that we have the depth that we had before. When you talk about full-back, someone just doesn’t come straight into my mind, where we can go, ‘we can try that’. It’s the same with first five (fly-half),” Kirwan said.
“I think we’ve got some depth issues. When guys like Richie Mo’unga go overseas and they go over for money, we’re suffering like Australia’s suffering.
“Will Skelton having to go back to his French side will weaken them because they don’t have two others like him, and that’s where I think South Africa has definitely got the jump on us at the moment.”
Kirwan then quipped: “Rassie’s not a South African coach, he’s a South African god. He’s a god over there”, before stating that New Zealand Rugby need to review their current system.
Springboks have ‘incredible depth’
“This is where I think we need to look at the way we’ve been doing things in the last 15 or 20 years, players playing overseas, all those things,” he said.
“They have incredible depth, I don’t think New Zealand has that type of depth anymore. You can’t keep changing the side if you’re going to lose.”
Erasmus certainly has more leeway from his supporters than Robertson given that he has guided them to successive world titles, but Kirwan admits that the All Blacks head coach could still be less cautious.
“I agree that we need to play these guys,” he added.
“When Razor came in, we all thought he might have made wholesale changes and tried stuff in his first year when you get away with it; it’s called the honeymoon period.
“He wanted to win and I understand that, and I think what Rassie’s done and what Razor has done has been two different philosophies.
“I do think that we need to take more risks. Rassie says: ‘I’m going to try some stuff’, and the public back him.
“He has a loss and then a win, he has a loss and then a win, and so do we, but maybe we do need to be a little bit more courageous on playing them.”