{"id":779896,"date":"2026-09-23T11:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779896\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:06:09","slug":"sir-steve-hansen-rassie-erasmus-needs-to-have-honest-conversations-with-ageing-springboks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779896\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Steve Hansen: Rassie Erasmus needs to have ‘honest conversations’ with ageing Springboks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Steve Hansen believes that honest conversations need to be had with ageing Springboks<\/a> players ahead of next year\u2019s Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

The legendary All Blacks coach says that Rassie Erasmus has several generational players who are nearing the end of their international<\/a> careers and that tough decisions need to be made before Australia 2027.<\/p>\n

Hansen speaks from experience, having been involved in four World Cup campaigns with New Zealand, two as an assistant coach to Sir Graham Henry.<\/p>\n

He was tasked with leading the All Blacks\u2019 title defence in 2015 and 2019 and also needed to freshen up the squad during that time, moving on many of the players who won back-to-back tournaments.<\/p>\n

Steven Kitshoff\u2019s view and ex-All Blacks boss\u2019 advice<\/p>\n

He aired his views on the ageing Springboks<\/a> squad on a Rugby Unity and For the Love of Rugby SA collaboration podcast where he was joined by former prop Steven Kitshoff and ex-Wallabies head coach Ewen McKenzie.<\/p>\n

Kitshoff, who won the 2019 and 2023 World Cups<\/a>, said that getting through the week\u2019s training is essential for anyone wanting to chase the three-peat. It\u2019s a point that Erasmus and former Bok coach Jacques Nienaber have discussed previously, with the duo learning from the 2011 tournament when several of the more experienced players couldn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is\u00a0still a full URC season that needs to be played and plenty of club games before they even go to the World Cup. So, it\u2019s going to be interesting to see how these guys get through, especially the older guys,\u201d Kitshoff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they get through it, if they get managed well, for me personally you don\u2019t want to take a squad to the World Cup that\u2019s a bit on the older side and can\u2019t get through a Monday-Tuesday training block, so it will be interesting to see how they get managed, how their bodies feel by then, but I can\u2019t see much rugby for them after that because they\u2019ve been in the Springboks squad for over a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hansen<\/a> agreed with the former front rower and suggested that Erasmus should have honest and open conversations with some of the older players to gauge their hunger and willingness to put in the hard yards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a group of players heading into 2015 who were getting on the older side, and we had a discussion one by one with them about what they controlled,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the only person who could tell you if they still had the desire, the genuine desire to do the work from Sunday to Friday \u2013 Saturday is always the fun time; that\u2019s when everyone can all still be playing if we could do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, Sunday to Friday is where the hard work gets done. So if your player can have a think about that, then come back and look you in the eye and say, \u2018I still have the desire, I still want to be here\u2019, then your process is all about performance. As the coach, you\u2019re guiding him on his performance like you\u2019re having honest conversations. Is the performance good enough? Yes, it is. Carry on. If it\u2019s not, we\u2019ll discuss it, and then we\u2019ll have to make decisions if we can\u2019t fix it. But first and foremost, they have to have the desire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven Kitshoff: Rassie Erasmus has a \u2018crew\u2019 of Springboks that he turns to when the \u2018chips are down\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Sir Steve Hansen: We are talking about generational players<\/p>\n

The 2015 World Cup-winning coach understands why Erasmus would be reluctant to filter out some of the experienced players like Jesse Kriel, Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Damian de Allende, Pieter-Steph du Toit and so on, stating that they are \u2018generational players\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, he added that some might even take the decision out of the head coach\u2019s hands by admitting that they don\u2019t have enough left in the tank to continue. If they do that, he believes that there is a right way to exit them out of the set-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys you\u2019re talking about are generational players for South Africa, and they\u2019re guys that you don\u2019t want to let go because they bring so much with them,\u201d he explained.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, if he has the conversation, then there might be one or two that say, \u2018Look, I don\u2019t I just can\u2019t do it anymore,\u2019 and that\u2019s fine; they\u2019re putting the team first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re brave enough to tell you. So you exit them out of the team in a way that they deserve to be exited out because they\u2019re champion players. But if they still have that desire, they\u2019ll front up, and they\u2019ll play well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen your job is to make sure that they are fresh enough to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springboks team: Winners and losers as Rassie Erasmus rewards \u2018egoless\u2019\u00a0warrior and the \u2018unluckiest\u2019 snub<\/a><\/p>\n

Contrasting view from Ewen McKenzie<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, McKenzie took a slightly contrasting view to Hansen, considering his experience with the Wallabies. Australia doesn\u2019t boast the same kind of strength in depth that the Springboks and All Blacks do, and keeping that kind of experience in the squad could be crucial.<\/p>\n

He suggests that a lighter training load for some of the older members of the squad could be a way of keeping them fresh for the tournament but at the same time was wary of having too many older players in the team \u2013 learning from his experiences as a player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been lots of different protocols and a lot of things where they\u2019ve been rested for games. I\u2019ve tended to take the approach of resting them from training,\u201d McKenzie explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, the bit that they enjoy is playing the game. So if you can manage their training load, then that\u2019s one way of managing their workload in total. That probably goes contrary to what Steve\u2019s talking about in some sense, but it does depend on the individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s done it differently. It also depends on your depth and what other options you\u2019ve got. There are some countries that have just got a team, and that\u2019s it. So, you\u2019re going to be more tolerant if you\u2019ve got extraordinary depth that makes it a different beast. I just noticed on the weekend that France have now, for the first time ever have got 33 protected players in this in the Top 14. So they\u2019re basically having a weekend off a month up until the World Cup and then also only going to play nine Tests or something like that in total.<\/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

\u201cSo it\u2019s up to the coach then to manage which Test they are, so there\u2019s a bit of a trade-off there. So France are trying to do something that they\u2019ve never done before. So everyone\u2019s got their ideas and thoughts about it. I think Steve is right; you\u2019ve got to trust the player if they want to do the work to be there. That\u2019s the critical part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to the 95 World Cup as Australia, and we were an older team; we\u2019d won a World Cup and then got beaten up after that by everyone. We managed to win games, but it was a long haul defending that title, and we got to the 1995 World Cup; we were all carrying injuries and things like that, thought we could do it, and we couldn\u2019t. We didn\u2019t get past the quarters. So you\u2019ve got to be cautious of that, and that\u2019s up to the coach to be able to read where players are at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: Rassie Erasmus has \u2018left door open\u2019 for Wallabies upset and why \u2018genie is officially out of the bottle\u2019 for New Zealand Rugby<\/a><\/p>\n

Strength and conditioning coach is crucial<\/p>\n

Hansen added that having a good strength and conditioning coach is crucial, as they need to understand the needs of the individual and not the collective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing is your head of SNC is really important. He has got to have an understanding of each individual rather than taking a mass approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, there\u2019ll be some guys that they\u2019ll do more training off their feet than on their feet. The older locks, do you have to do every line out? No, you don\u2019t. So let\u2019s take away some of the jumping load during the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t de-train them, but what you do is you can look after them in the areas where your joints and things blow up when you get old, so put them on a bike; don\u2019t do the jumping today, whatever it might be.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Springboks team: Five takeaways as Rassie Erasmus \u2018not in the business of sympathy caps\u2019 with squad \u2018overhaul\u2019 but head coach opts for \u2018insurance policy\u2019 bench<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Steve Hansen believes that honest conversations need to be had with ageing Springboks players ahead of next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[348,3482,50,7196,5903,8631,193266,4247,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-779896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-news","tag-rassie-erasmus","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-sir-steve-hansen","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}