{"id":572870,"date":"2026-08-18T16:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/572870\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:22:11","slug":"rassie-erasmus-obvious-ploy-to-combat-all-blacks-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/572870\/","title":{"rendered":"Rassie Erasmus’ obvious ploy to combat All Blacks’ ‘narrative’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rassie Erasmus and Jaco Peyper have hit back at accusations that the Springboks<\/a> are attempting to slow the game down ahead of thier four Tests against the All Blacks in Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series.<\/p>\n

The Boks<\/a> head coach did not hide his intentions at Monday\u2019s press conference ahead of the series opener, confirming that SA Rugby\u2019s law adviser, Peyper, was present instead of a player to address the claims around the speed of the game.<\/p>\n

Springboks hit back at accusations<\/p>\n

All Blacks<\/a> 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.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy opinion is New Zealand has played four matches, and there\u2019s 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,\u201d Erasmus<\/a> explained when asked why Peyper was in attendence at the press conference and not a player.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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,\u201d the ex-referee explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s basically the contract between referees and coaches to say, coach your players to play this way and we will try and referee this way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen there\u2019s alignment on Mondays post-match, so I think the main thing is that over the five games that we\u2019ve played, we\u2019ve not had one piece of feedback that we slow down the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ex-All Black getting \u2018nostalgic\u2019 watching Dave Rennie\u2019s side as Springboks will be \u2018run off their feet\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Rassie Erasmus: World Rugby\u2019s decision has forced coaches to \u2018voice concerns\u2019 in the media, it\u2019s our \u2018only option\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Rassie Erasmus: You can pray if you want to<\/p>\n

Peyper argued that perhaps the All Blacks\u2019 complaints stem from the fact that they have played against South African United Rugby Championship teams who are still in pre-season training.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like playing those Super Rugby warm-ups in January; maybe there\u2019s something there, but I mean we certainly haven\u2019t got negative feedback around it,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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\u2019s scrum or lineout, not from the whistle, from when the foot\u2019s put down- there\u2019s 30 seconds to form, not get the ball in \u2013 we have to adhere to that and we respect that and we train to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018All Blacks are going to get a surprise\u2019 \u2013 Jean de Villiers rejects Springboks stereotype amid tourists\u2019 claims and refereeing concerns<\/a><\/p>\n

Erasmus was in a rather humorous mood as he added that, in those 30 seconds, teams could do whatever they liked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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\u2019s nothing in the law that says you can\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry: Ranking the top 10 players so far as Springboks snub enters the fray while All Blacks rookie \u2018rockets\u2019 into third<\/a><\/p>\n

Away teams slow down the game on the highveld<\/p>\n

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\u2019s usually the away teams who try to slow the game down at altitude.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same with the Lions and Bulls; they didn\u2019t want that. But you can also slow the game down by continuously infringing at the breakdown or maul and breaking the game tempo there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing is there are proper, strong referees in these matches, and they are very clear on the guidelines. So it\u2019s up to the teams that are under pressure. They will probably try to slow the game down.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Ex-Springboks star centres weigh into Damian de Allende v Jordie Barrett battle as All Blacks standout has \u2018earned\u2019 best in the world \u2018right\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rassie Erasmus and Jaco Peyper have hit back at accusations that the Springboks are attempting to slow the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1463,1464,111,43,139,69,6327,213],"class_list":["post-572870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}