Jacques Nienaber, the Leinster-bound, departing Springboks head coach, and Ian Foster, the departing All Blacks head coach, faced the media on Thursday and announced the respective line-ups for tonight’s World Cup final. But lurking in the shadows are two men whose imprint is all over their two teams’ progress to this collision between the game’s main superpowers.
The two men are, of course, the contrasting but equally driven, sharply intelligent, slightly obsessive and high achieving figures of Rassie Erasmus, the former Munster director of rugby/head coach, and Joe Schmidt, the former Leinster and Ireland head coach.
Schmidt left an altogether bigger imprint on Leinster and Irish rugby after spending nine-and-a-half seasons in the country. Hence, he’d have found the quarter-final match against Ireland emotionally difficult, and the least enjoyable win of his time with the All Blacks.
By contrast, although he initially signed a three-year contract with Munster, it never felt as if Erasmus was there for the long haul. The lure of the Springboks was always too strong. Sure enough, he returned to South Africa within a year-and-a-half to take over as director of rugby.
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To compound Munster’s disappointment, he brought his longtime friend and colleague Nienaber with him and soon Erasmus had taken over from Allister Coetzee as the ‘Boks head coach.
While he reverted to the role of director of rugby after the last World Cup, with Nienaber formally promoted to the position of head coach, as anyone watching the coaches’ box at this World Cup can see, Erasmus remains the de facto main man.
His influence on the Springboks has been more profound than that of Schmidt on the All Blacks. Ahead of assuming a role as a selector, Schmidt stepped in as a consultant for the first Test against Ireland in July last year after Foster and his assistants John Plumtree and Scott McLeod contracted Covid.
Only in August 2022 was Schmidt elevated to the full-time role, halfway through the Rugby Championship, which they won before retaining that title this year.
Of course, in 2019 Erasmus became already a World Cup-winning head coach in Japan after just 18 months in the job, rebuilding a side beaten 38-3 by Ireland less than two years previously.
Fittingly it was while doing a year’s service together in the South African military in 1991, that Erasmus and Nienaber first met.
“He was one of our top graduates,” Nienaber recalled in an interview with The Irish Times in September 2016. “He was quite good at the army, and he stayed on another year, and when he then came to the [Free State] University and started playing for the University, we met again.”
Their military service appears to have had a profound impact on their coaching. As an example of how he plans campaigns with military-like precision, Erasmus’ preparations have included sending an advance party of players to New Zealand a week early during the Rugby Championship and resting 18 of his top players for their 24-18 win over Argentina.
Their philosophy is based on knowing their opposition inside out, thereby anticipating what they are going to do, so as counteract it. In the increasingly influential and in England-bound Felix Jones, whom Erasmus co-opted onto the Boks’ ticket before the last World Cup, they have a kindred spirit.
At Munster, Jones would assiduously analyse opposition goal-kickers, timing both their preparation stance and run-up, while looking for any chink to signal their run-up with a view to a potential charge down. Many Munster players watching Cheslin Kolbe block Thomas Ramos’ conversion attempt in the quarter-final would have said: “That was Felix.”
When the camera clipped to the coaching box at France’s first lineout in the quarter-final, Nienaber and Jones could be seen talking and nodding, as if agreeing what France were going to do next.
They would have known from France’s set-up what was likely to be their next play because most teams start off with a well-rehearsed move, with the position of the blindside winger suggesting either a kick or a move to the backline.
At heart, the Erasmus/Nienaber philosophy is all about winning the physical battle. This is best exemplified in the many video clips out there of Erasmus, Nienaber and Eben Etzebeth in dressing-rooms and on the training ground with their mantra: “We’re going to f**k them up.”
Nienaber often talks about “drawing a line in the sand” and winning the gain line. They link this to the emotional side of the game, asking the players “why do you play this sport?”
But they also ease the pressure on the players. For example, whereas some coaches demand that their scrumhalves box kick to a target 25 metres up the pitch, Erasmus and Nienaber don’t mind if their players shanking a kick, it’s all about the next chase, winning the next battle and as many battles as possible.
Their methods are tailor made for the Springboks’ mentality and physicality; consistently win the gain line and assure their players that over 80 minutes they will prevail. Their team is picked accordingly too, witness the 7-1 split for the final, a gamble designed to simply wear the All Blacks down.
In the All Blacks camp, Schmidt’s methods also revolve around making the players believe that they have done the work and are so sure in their detail that they are also better prepared than the opposition.
His philosophy is perhaps more scientific, with consistent perfection on the training ground making for better execution on the pitch, and he is undoubtedly more inventive around use of the ball. Schmidt’s attention to detail is equally famed, and he consistently finds weaknesses in the opposition defence to exploit.
Schmidt is a genius when it comes to using a strike play in one game and then, having shown that play to future opponents, tweaking it from a similar set-up.
In the opening game, the All Blacks scored early in each half through opening up the French defence with starter plays. Shortly after half-time, the All Blacks called a four-man lineout 11 metres inside half-way on their right touchline.
Scott Barrett provided off the top ball to Aaron Smith, who hit Ardie Savea in the middle of a three-man attacking pod. The number eight, of all people, dropped the ball onto his left foot and chipped delicately over the advancing defensive line for Will Jordan, supporting on his inside, to gather, and from the recycle, Rieko Ioane’s skip pass (although forward) put Mark Telea over in the corner.
In the 52nd minute against Ireland, the All Blacks again called a four-man line, in an identical spot. This time Brodie Retallick fed off the top ball to Smith, whose long pass again missed Jordan and hit Richie Mo’unga, with Savea on his outside.
There was a slight dog leg in the Irish defensive alignment, which Schmidt probably detected in advance. With Finlay Bealham, just on, hanging back. Mo’unga dummied to Jordan and accelerated through the gap between Dan Sheehan and Josh van der Flier before drawing James Lowe and putting Jordan over on his inside.
Similarly, Schmidt’s Leinster and Irish teams would hit up the middle of the field off a lineout, then reload back and hit a forward, before the scrumhalf looped around. A week or two later, they’d run the exact same first three phases, but the nine would pass back inside for a trailing runner - a la Rob Kearney hitting that line close to the ruck and putting Cian Healy over against Clermont in that epic semi-final win in Bordeaux in April 2012.
That is very Schmidt-like. Show the same set-up, with different variations off it. Many in Irish rugby will look acutely for the influence of Erasmus and Schmidt in this final.
For it is the presence of the power behind the thrones that makes for a fascinating sub-plot.
