Rassie Erasmus and Jaco Peyper have hit back at accusations that the Springboks are attempting to slow the game down ahead of thier four Tests against the All Blacks in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
The Boks head coach did not hide his intentions at Monday’s press conference ahead of the series opener, confirming that SA Rugby’s law adviser, Peyper, was present instead of a player to address the claims around the speed of the game.
Springboks hit back at accusations
All Blacks boss Dave Rennie has repeatedly spoken about how he wants his team to play a high-paced and up-tempo game with New Zealand pundits, stating that the side will want to run the Springboks off their feet.
“My opinion is New Zealand has played four matches, and there’s certainly been a narrative out there which I think is very technical around the speed of the game, the slowing down of the game, and Jaco is better able to answer those questions because he helps us with all those technical things around laws and so on,” Erasmus explained when asked why Peyper was in attendence at the press conference and not a player.
That opened the floor for Peyper to address the accusations, and the former international referee revealed that there was an agreement struck between coaches and match officials at the most recent World Rugby Shape of the Game meeting on how the game should be played.
“There was a Shape of the Game meeting at the beginning of the year where all the big-ticket issues in the world were discussed, and the things that come out of there are the key focus areas for referees,” the ex-referee explained.
“That’s basically the contract between referees and coaches to say, coach your players to play this way and we will try and referee this way.
“Then there’s alignment on Mondays post-match, so I think the main thing is that over the five games that we’ve played, we’ve not had one piece of feedback that we slow down the game.”
Rassie Erasmus: You can pray if you want to
Peyper argued that perhaps the All Blacks’ complaints stem from the fact that they have played against South African United Rugby Championship teams who are still in pre-season training.
“It’s like playing those Super Rugby warm-ups in January; maybe there’s something there, but I mean we certainly haven’t got negative feedback around it,” he continued.
“We expect to play in terms of those agreements with the referees and coaches. And yes, the law is very clear: 30 seconds from the moment the referee puts his foot down to make a mark, whether it’s scrum or lineout, not from the whistle, from when the foot’s put down- there’s 30 seconds to form, not get the ball in – we have to adhere to that and we respect that and we train to that.”
Erasmus was in a rather humorous mood as he added that, in those 30 seconds, teams could do whatever they liked.
“What you do up until that lineout is completely up to you; you can pray if you want to. You can get down on your knees; if you want to huddle, you can huddle. There’s nothing in the law that says you can’t,” he said.
“We’ve got 11 languages, and we have to make sure that everybody understands the lineout call. So, you can huddle; then when the referee gives the mark, within 30 seconds you must form the lineout.”
Away teams slow down the game on the highveld
A vastly experienced match official, Peyper has been involved in his fair share of games involving New Zealand teams and fixtures played at altitude. He believes that it’s usually the away teams who try to slow the game down at altitude.
While feigning injuries and delaying set-pieces are often viewed as tactics used to control the tempo of the game, Peyper said teams under pressure will slow the game down in other ways.
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“I’ve seen narratives about slowing down when it gets to set-pieces at altitude and refereed many Super Rugby games here where the game is slowed down by the teams that travel,” he said.
“It’s the same with the Lions and Bulls; they didn’t want that. But you can also slow the game down by continuously infringing at the breakdown or maul and breaking the game tempo there.
“The good thing is there are proper, strong referees in these matches, and they are very clear on the guidelines. So it’s up to the teams that are under pressure. They will probably try to slow the game down.”