Former All Blacks head coach Laurie Mains has clapped back at Rassie Erasmus after the Springboks boss criticised him in his book.
The duo worked together when Mains, who coached the New Zealand team that reached the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, was in charge of the Cats during the 2000 and 2001 Super 12 seasons.
It was during the latter season of the New Zealander’s stint in South Africa that the feud between Mains and Erasmus, who was captain of the team at the time, began.
History of the Rassie-Mains feud
According to the then-Springboks flanker, the head coach objected to his body language at practice sessions and believed that it undermined his authority, with Erasmus saying that jealousy was at the heart of Mains’ issue.
Erasmus told newspaper Volksblad that he was prepared to return to South Africa during a tour of New Zealand and Australia because of the feud, and black players in the squad were prepared to join him in doing so, with Mains accused of having poor relationships with players of colour.
“Mains did not study our opponents. Before we played against the Auckland Blues, he said we should be wary of dangermen (flank) Matua Parkinson and (flyhalf) Carlos Spencer. He did not even know that both were injured,” Erasmus said at the time.
Initially, Mains did not respond in much detail to Erasmus’ claims and opted not to take a hard line because he had come to the end of his coaching stint in South Africa, but he did so in his book, Rugby Nomads, which was published a year later.
In the book, he claimed that Erasmus had to receive treatment for depression and stated that the flanker wanted to derail the Cats’ Super 12 campaign by implementing his own game plan. The coach also wanted to drop Erasmus from the team, but the support the loose forward had from the squad, particularly from the players of colour, prevented him from doing so.
In Erasmus’ book released in 2023, he fired back at Mains, who addressed the Bok head coach’s comments in a recent interview with New Zealand broadcaster Dom Harvey, who read the following excerpt from the book.
“I learnt from the mistakes both of us made. I won’t have players who behave as badly as I did, feeling entitled just because they are playing well.
“How Laurie coached and analysed is exactly how I don’t want to be as a coach.
“But more importantly, I learnt to have proper communication with the players, to address grievances properly and not allow ill feelings to fester and affect the whole team.”
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Mains’ latest swipe
Mains revealed that he recently spoke with Erasmus’ former teammate Andre Venter, who said that he now coaches similarly to the New Zealander.
“Well, it’s funny he says that because Andre Venter, who was a great Springbok, told me ‘Rassie is doing exactly what you did that he hated to do and he refused to do. He is doing that with his players’,” the 79-year-old remarked.
“So you can take that comment for what it’s worth.
“The only reason I had conflict with Rassie, it wasn’t about rugby issues; it was that he didn’t want to train,” he continued.
“Maybe he kept himself fit, I don’t know, but if I’d let the whole team be as slack as he wanted to be, there’s no way we would have won games.
“There are a lot of those players, who were big South Africans, like you see now, and you’ve got to work hard to get them fit enough ”
He further addressed the feud and took a few digs when doing so after being asked whether comments in books like the one’s Erasmus made bothered him.
“Not coming from him,” Mains retorted.
“He’s a very dishonest person, and I’m not going to get into it now, but he had a lot of personal failings in his social life and that sort of thing.
“No, it doesn’t bother me coming from him.”