BREAKING: Ireland legend joins Springboks coaching team

The former Irish international will join the squad in Japan on a short-term consultancy, filling a vacancy left by the withdrawal for medical reasons of Swys de Bruin.

Jones will take on a new role and not be a straight swap for attack coach, De Bruin.

“I spoke to the players after Swys decided to step down and the consensus was that we didn’t want a new attack coach,” said Erasmus, Director of Coaching at SA Rugby.

“The feeling was that bringing in someone in that role now with new ideas now would be destabilising at this last stage of the preparations.

“But they were interested in having more analysis of defensive patterns and structures to assist in breaking down the opposition.”

Erasmus said that he was fortunate that Jones was available at a time when most coaches were already engaged at club or international level.