Rassie Erasmus hits out at controversial World Rugby changes

Under the new rules, head coaches can only meet with the referee before a Test if both coaches accept the invitation and attend together.

Previously, coaches could hold one-on-one meetings with match officials to discuss specific laws and clarify how they intended to approach certain situations.

The Springboks boss questioned the system last month, arguing that it had created a communication gap between coaches and referees.

Post-match procedures have also changed, with coaches now limited to submitting six video clips for clarification through a central system. Those submissions are visible to other international coaches and match officials.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s first Test against the All Blacks at Ellis Park, which will be refereed by Englishman Matthew Carley, Erasmus said he understood why coaches were increasingly raising concerns publicly rather than discussing them directly with referees.

“I think there’s definitely frustration from the coaches that you can’t have meetings with the referee if both teams don’t agree,” he said, according to SA Rugby Mag. “It’s now at a stage where you almost accept both teams’ coaches aren’t always going to agree to a pre-match meeting.

“I myself this week said, ‘No, no, we don’t need one,’ because it doesn’t help now, after they’ve played four games, and now we want to sort out things in three training sessions.

“We had to look at what they put on AMS [Athlete Management System] – that’s a central system – and then sort of learn from what the answers are from World Rugby.

“I don’t think it’s a tactic. I think it’s an obvious thing: if you want to get something out, you have to get it out here [in a press conference] because you can’t really talk to the referee sometimes.”

The change means Erasmus has less opportunity to surprise opponents with tactics designed to exploit potential loopholes in the laws, such as the midfield maul South Africa trialled last year.

Erasmus explained how the restrictions can make it harder for coaches to alert referees to specific tactical elements of their game plan that could influence how an incident is interpreted.

“There are small things which, in normal referee meetings, you alert them to: ‘Listen, we might do a midfield maul, just be aware of that, know the law around that.’

“Now you can’t, because you have to have the meeting with the other coach. You can’t say, ‘Listen, we may be doing a front peel in the lineout, maybe don’t stand there when we do the front peel because you might not see if it’s obstruction or not.’

“So I think teeing up the referees with things you want to do is very difficult, and I totally understand why the All Blacks voice some of their concerns.

“If they genuinely believe we slow down the game, they can’t say it in a meeting with us being present and we’re arguing with them, ‘We’re not slowing it down.’

“So it’s a very natural thing to do it in the media now because of the protocols.”