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<\/p>\nThe stereotype of the Springboks is of huge forwards laying waste to all before them like some marauding green and gold army of stone giants and very little in the way of fluent attacking rugby. It made them easy to pigeonhole and easier still to take against. An identification parade of world rugby\u2019s bad guys would have featured South Africa front and centre.<\/p>\n
Something strange has happened though in recent times. There has been a metamorphosis. The South African side which will confront England will have that base element of muscle which is the Springbok DNA but they can play too.<\/p>\n
With Manie Libock zipping passes left, right and centre and Cheslin Kolbe doing his hot-shoe shuffle out wide, the Springboks have become strangely loveable.<\/p>\n
Not everyone feels this way – as the online death threat Boks scrum-half Cobus Reinach had to deal with after the quarter-final victory over France showed – but for the non-unhinged their evolution has been a surprising treat.<\/p>\n
The architect of the transformation, the architect of everything Springbok is director of rugby Rassie Erasmus. His explanation of why this has happened is fascinating.<\/p>\n
After South Africa lost to France 11 months ago, Erasmus decided on the radical revamp of the side\u2019s approach. While it made them a whole lot easier on the eye, that wasn\u2019t the point.<\/p>\n
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\u201cPost that last French game I tweeted a few tweets and a lot of people said it was controversial,\u201d recalled Erasmus. \u201cI can remember I said we will have to adapt and make things clearer for referees, we can’t just rely on mauling, scrumming and close-contact work where it is very difficult for the referee to make the correct decision.<\/p>\n
“If you only rely on a certain aspect of the game which is very tough for the referee to referee and he gets two decisions wrong and you get four opportunities a game, 50 per cent of your opportunities are gone. But if you fire shots in open play, general play from the top of lineouts or counter-attack, it\u2019s clearer decisions for the referee and easier to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to adapt and try and score tries through more open, fluent, running rugby. You can see in our try-scoring tally there’s a lot scored by our backs – more than our forwards.<\/p>\n
“As a team we don’t want to be this wonderful playing rugby team that the whole world loves, but we do want to score tries.”<\/p>\n
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