Why Rassie Is Rotating Everyone, and What He Is Really Targeting | Rugby Rundown

Welcome back to the rugby rundown on a Thursday this time. Jan and I decided to wait until after as he spelted his wisdoms at the press conference. Otherwise, we'd be talking in a vacuum. And yeah, good value as always. Welcome back, Jan.

Morning. Welcome. And thank you very much for having me on the show. It's always lucky to chat rugby. And as you know, I enjoy chatting with you.

And we have some good insights. Yeah, the first thing that caught my eye was Russi saying that they're not used to playing with bonus points except in the World Cup. I mean, that's absolute nonsense. I think you probably forgot about the rugby championship. Shows you how important it is in their minds at the moment.

Because the whole competition is built around bonus points and the likes. Just talk to me about that. Yeah, so there's two things at play here. First is Russi likes shooting at the hip, which is why we love him, because he's honestly straight up front. so sometimes maybe he misses or he forgets something the other alternative could be that it's just a language thing it's a typical lost in translation situation I would lean towards the latter is that Razzi wanted to say something and that he's not going to focus on bonus points and tournament standings he wants to focus game by game and that makes sense to me that Razzi first wants to focus on where he's going with the team that he's building towards the world cup obviously every game you want to win and he repeatedly says that every time you speak team he says every game we play to win that's understandable but is he planning to rotate his team he admitted he's going to rotate his team so so what is what is he how does he achieve that that means if you start focusing on things like bonus points and stuff that they have to score five tries and all sorts of things uh that that's over i'm sorry apologies four tries and all that sort of stuff.

So the reality is that Razi wants to stick to his program, his plan and his master plan of building depth in the squad ahead of the World Cup, making sure that African rugby is strong past 2031. So in that regard, I think what he meant is he's going to focus game by game. And if you keep winning every game, be it without bonus points, you're still going to win the tournament because other guys are going to get four bonus points per game to match you and that's physically impossible you know at best they can get two bonus points but if you win you get four points they get two points you know so new zealand can let's say for argument's sake because we're in new zealand's pool so new zealand can win every game but they lose one game so they get bonus points so they get 12 points but you get you win all your games you get uh 12 points then it's points difference and all sorts of things and the points difference will be better because you win all your games so there's lots of things in play. So I think Russi probably just misspoken and all he wanted to say was he's focusing on game. The next thing he's focused right now is England on beating England.

The interesting thing for me is, and that raises the question, is are the Springboks taking the Nations Championship seriously? You can say, yeah, we're only focused on winning each game, which makes sense to a degree. But there is now something at stake here. And I, for one, can't be told that Russi's not going to try and win this thing. I mean, imagine England or Ireland or the All Blacks or somebody wins this nation's championship, it's definitely going to be a bit of a psychological blow.

Because you want to go into next year, you know, the World Cup year with your head held high, confidence high. And if you actually now lose it, that's probably a setback. Except if you decide from day one, you don't care about it. And I can't see a guy like Rossi saying, I don't care about this kind of championship. No, he definitely cares.

I think, same last year. Remember, we went into the Australian game and we got a huge wake-up call. And thereafter, the box was a different team. So we might get a wake-up call somewhere and he wants to win. I just don't think he is looking at it from a perspective of this is now a tournament.

We must get bonus points and we must do this and we must move. I think if there's a loss, let's say for argument's sake, we lose him against England in the opening match, things will change. He suddenly won't rotate as much. You will find that then suddenly so he'll make adjustments he'll stick to more of a core team he won't rest as many players because we already know he's resting players and some of the injured players like Kourbis Reinach won't play before, and Rashi said it already he won't play before the All Blacks he can be available for England he can be ready for Scotland but he's not going to push him back he would rather let him settle because the long term goal is the World Cup and he wants Kourbis there at the World Cup and how do you keep him safe, even Etzebeth they're even going to play every game. Sia are going to play every game.

Can you afford to risk these guys by playing them every game and playing your best team? No, that's a huge risk. So, Russ's plan is to rotate his players, and he made it pretty clear. He wants to rotate and give caps to players and get them ready for the World Cup and make sure they're comfortable in a box jersey when they're starting 15. So, I think that's his goal, but if we lose the first game, there'll be less rotation for sure.

The interesting thing that he did say is, you know, this squad of 46 players, it's not like the World Cup squad where you announce your players and then you have to play them. You can only pick from them except there's an injury like happened under a pullout replacing Malcolm Arce. This is simply a group of players that he's pulled in and he can change and chop and change and he probably will chop and change them. I'm more interested in their omissions than the inclusions. We'll get to the inclusions just now about the younger players being fast-tracked there, but specific exclusions for me is Faf, you know, playing for the Springboks last weekend and now not even being in the squad.

And for me personally, most importantly, what's the story of Elric Lowe? Rassi actually addressed most of these names in the press conference. And a very passing reference to Elric. No indication of whether he's injured or he's out of form. I don't actually know what's going on there.

And I'm a little worried about that player specifically. But talk to me about the omissions, what he said there. Okay. The Elric Lowe thing, the way I read that statement, he was actually asked about Joano Augustus and he tried to explain that Joano is in the picture but he's behind these players, so he mentioned Evan and he mentioned Jasper and he mentioned Hanekom and he mentioned Elric so you know that the top four number eight because he talks about the tiers five and six so he's trying to build tiers five and six and people think it's ridiculous it's not as absurd as you think he's busy building that that's why he rotates so what he was trying to say is Joana is injured and he's there so he's going to try Elric because his words were once we have tried XYZ and Elric's name was in that group that he said, so he's going to try him at some stage it might be against Wales or it might be against Australia or against Argentina a game that doesn't have such a major impact, so we know Elric will come back, same with Faf, he says he's tried Faf, he knows what Faf can do and yeah, you know I think we all know what Faf can do but he wants to also give the youngsters Urzel Yankees yeah, you know is he better than Faf? Not in my opinion but Rashi wants to see him, Rashi wants to do something so Rashi is trying him you know, and he knows Faf can come back any day, he can call him back, you know, if something happens, there's a scrum off injury he's got four scrum halves and he wants to see what the usual he wants to give us a chance now so all these positions you'll see that there's a a number of tiers yeah it's it's surprising and i don't think many people realize that that and they probably think it's it's a lunacy but russia is busy working where he's got four teams and he's already pretty close to it personally i think uh his first tier team and his second tier team is pretty close each other they're both and we've seen this at World Cups and then his third team and his fourth team are also of test rugby and the point I wanted to make is we can already field four teams of test quality, will they all beat the All Blacks in Australia and England and France, no but our first two teams and this is where Russ is going, that's why you have these players, you have four tiers of number eight, four tiers of crammas, five tiers, six tiers.

So that sort of depth, and that's why all these youngsters are involved, that sort of depth is going to take us through to the World Cup. So we know that after next year's World Cup, the likes of Etzebeth and Khaleesi and Lurdi Jager and Peter Steff and those guys are all going to retire because they're going, trying to get a third World Cup in a row. Which is a great ambition. Is it possible? Yes.

Is it likely? That's a challenge. That's a push. But, you know, we say Africans, we're going to try it anyway. So the real thing is he wants to, he's already building for 2031 and people don't understand.

That's why he's going to have four tiers of teams. So the way the first tier goes he already got three tiers in line in place And I think people are missing that point It not about a test tomorrow It not just about a test tomorrow And that's why, to get back to your earlier question about why is he not talking about bonus points? Because he's building on this. This is part of his program. In these tests, he's going to look to win the test and introduce players to test rugby.

Some new youngsters. I mean, Riley Norton, we've already spoken often about our depth at lock and we think it's thin. Now he's proving we've got another player that could be the next Euban or the next Matfield or whatever but he's bringing him in. So the baby box is last their captain but the spring box are benefiting from that and it's that enormous depth that he's busy building that people underestimate. No, I understand all of that.

I'm just specifically concerned about Elric because we said specifically when we spoke to John Cardenelli that Rossi in the past would say, you know, Cameron Anacom is not being considered because he's injured. XYZ is not being considered because he's injured or whatever reason the only reference that he made to Elric Lowe specifically was when asked about Jano Augustus he said and I'm quoting we track all players, all competitions that we think when we do our depth chart and we try to get 5 or 6 positions like you just said, deep in a position and Jano was definitely in that scope but he's still injured and unfortunately therefore he's not available so when we tested Evan Roos and tested Jasper and tested Cameron and maybe Elric comes back into the mix and we test him. That's all he said about Elric. Nothing about he's injured or something, that's what I'm a little bit concerned about and I'm hopping on about this. But like I said, he's an adopted son of this channel.

So it feels like my own son wasn't selected for the springboks. I want to know what's going on here. And you're talking about Rasi being honest. This is not straightforward. This is not that straightforward.

There seems, I don't know, what am I missing here? Yeah, maybe he is injured. Maybe he was injured in the final that he struggled, that's why he didn't do so well. Who knows? Maybe he took an injury into the game that he didn't tell them about and has now come out and they're just quietly keeping it away and he's just going out there, fix himself up and come back when he's good and ready again.

I'm not sure, but is Eldritch better than Joarna? I don't see enough of Joarna to know. I know people rave him. The guy who asked the question had an agenda. I know him very well.

He's got an agenda. He asks in every possible opportunity, he asks about Johanna. So, you know, it's the same of the guys that will ask in every possible press conference, they'll ask about Salman Murat, you know. Because that's their player. So sometimes people come into these press conferences with an agenda and sometimes they're asking questions.

I think in this case the question was asked with an agenda and that's why Elric's name was just thrown in the mix because Rashi wanted to make the point of how many players he's looking at and that's where it comes back to my tears I went a bit long winded earlier, but he said I'm looking at all these players so there's five tears of number eight of loose forwards that he's already looking at and if you look at this team when he announced his team he's got all these utility forwards, you know Peter Steff, Frank Karalim Norton is listed as a utility forward, that means Riley is going to be tried as a loose forward. I don't think he's going to be tried as a proper hooker, but he's going to be tried as a loose forward. And Riley is clearly bulked up. I think anybody who's watched a bit or watched the Barbers game would see that Riley is not the same scrawny that came back from the championships last year. He's a proper...

He's maturing. He still qualifies to play under 20. That's why he was our captain. So he's still a baby. So he's got another two or three years of bulking, of growing.

And, you know, so imagine what he's going to be like when he's 24, 25. So anyway, I'll go on again. The point that I think Rashi was, and the point that we should not miss is that he wanted to show that he's monitoring so many tiers of players in every position. So Riley, he's got so many locks, and he's got other players who can play locks. so Peter Steff and Franco and Riley can play lock and then he's got his four front line locks, so he's got four locks plus another three guys, so now he's down to seven players in a lock position and that's what the point people sometimes must say, they look at a position and they'll ask about in your case you ask about Elric another guy asked about Joana and I don't mean to belittle you, but you have an agenda for that it's not a bad agenda, it's not bad to have agendas but you have an agenda so you look at the position when you step back and you look at the bigger picture you suddenly realize hold on a second that Rashi is busy with something else here and perhaps that's the picture that most of us miss no no I stand properly corrected thank you Young for pointing out the error of my ways I'm kidding all I'm saying is it's just interesting that they're not saying why he's not there and he was actually sort of you know penciled in in the past that's all I'm getting at let's move on Ryan Norton you just said and Rashi went to great leagues to explain why that shows a young player Like he just basically still under 20, ahead of a player like JJ van der Mesh.

Everybody was sort of, you know, wondering about JJ van der Mesh, the big bruising kind of a player. And Russell explained why he went for someone like Riley Norton. Basically bypassing a lot of maturing almost, you know, in the UFC, week after week, grinding away. And giving him a chance to walk into the Springbok side. And there's a couple of people that are very upset about that.

The fact that, you know, guys who have been playing week after week, like I just said, now being sort of bypassed. past. And that was an interesting thing to me, that Rossi prefers the Riley Norton type of player ahead of the JJ van der Mees type of player. What did he say about that? I see his point.

Again, I see his point, because I'm looking at the bigger picture. Riley Norton is the type of player that he's planning for the future. Yes, JJ is the form player. He's in the Premiership. He's a massive player, but he's a bulk of a player.

It's like comparing Victor Matfield to Kürbis Visser. If you got the two next to each other, I mean, they don't come from the same era. But Victor Matfield's a very different player to Kürbis Visser. Kürbis Visser was a big ball carrier, a scrummager, and very seldom jumped in the line-up. J.

Defina Messers is a big ball carrier, straight up down the middle. That's not the type of lock Rossi now wants. That's why he's got mobile. So what does that tell you? He's planning to evolve the game to a more mobile pack of forwards.

So he's done with these big bulky guys. He wants guys who can move around the park, got big engines and can carry on. So, is JJ out of the picture? No. But he was in the alignment game, the virtual alignment games.

So, he's a good player. He's one of the best in the Premiership. And I'm sure a lot of countries would jump at the opportunity to select him. Much like France did with Paul Willemson. Paul Willemson didn't suit the Springbok agenda at the time or the Springbok profile at the time.

And I'm sure JJ will feel unhappy because if his dream is to play for the Spoonbox, you know, to hear that sort of talk. But again, you know, step back, look at the bigger picture and then say, maybe Rossi has got a plan that we're missing and that we don't quite understand. All right. Then talk to me about Paul de Villiers. I hear he's been practicing line-up throws as well.

Is he now going to end up at hooker as well like everybody else, like Marco von Stalden, like Jan Linderk-Glessels, like Dion Furi. Is that now the trend, you know, if you're a flanker, you're going to end up at hooker, because like you just said, the most striking thing about the squad is athleticism, speed, you know, even the scrum offs, everybody is so fast, is that where the spring walks are going, move away from the more bruising, you know, run over you kind of a thing and rather just run past you. I think there's definitely an ongoing evolution in the spring walk team, so I think for the World Cup next year, Russia is not just freshening up, making sure there's enough youth there, enough energy, and enough mobility at the World Cup. Because, yes, we will still have defence. We will still work on our defence, our style of defence.

So that will be there. We'll never lose that. We'll still have our set pieces. The scrumms will still function. We've got monster props.

So I think to get back to Paul, I wouldn't I wouldn't put it past Russi if he's busy grooming him, much like he did with Marco. You know, making sure that if the need be, he doesn't have to call up another hooker. He's got now two loose forwards that can play a hooker as well and work on him. They did the same thing at the World Cup with Marco. The first time we realized that Marco was practicing was when we asked about Malcolm Marks and Russi said he's got enough cover and then he mentioned Marco.

That's the first time he let us in on the fact that Marco has been practicing hooker already. So I think Paul de Valles is stocky enough to play hooker but I don think it going to be his primary position merely as a backup And that how Rassi operates and I think that what a lot of people miss The point is they and we are human beings and we got our own personal preferences And sometimes we look at the position and the player and why is he not there? Why is Evan Reus not there? Maybe it's because Evan Reus doesn't fit Rassi's plan. Now Evan Reus has adjusted his game.

He's still prone to the odd brain explosion, but he's getting better so he's played himself back into the picture that doesn't mean he's going to start ahead of Jasper every game, Jasper's still our Premier No. 8 but Evan is better and the same will happen with Paul, he'll play mostly flank and if the need arise, he can slot in and help at Hooker if need be, but I just want to share this and people tend to forget that Cheson Colby, the smallest player in the team has already thrown in the lineouts in the test and jumped in the lineouts in the test. He was lifted by two locks nonetheless, but it's the easiest thing to lift a small player like that. You can go much higher than lifting a lock. And throwing into the lineouts, suddenly, what do you have?

You've got this nippy player behind the thing and you've got a scrum off somewhere else or if a scrum off goes off, I think in this case it was a scrum off that was sent off and Cheslin threw in in the lineout. So, again, you know, just to come back to my point, Rassi is always thinking with a plan. I think he's two steps ahead of the rest of the world. And we're all still trying to catch up. And, you know, one day when we catch up to Rassi, we're going to be so shocked at what really goes on and how genius he really is.

Yeah. The one thing about chess that worries me is that, you know, he can sidestep an entire team, but he can't sidestep a cameraman. But, yeah, that's a story for another one. I do have to share this with you. So I did, as you will know, I did an article on it about whether that was an accident or, you know, or was it plain stupidity.

And I actually reached out to the broadcaster for comment about this. And I'll get to that just now. Because World Rugby's Law says there's a five meter barrier. Those guys are not supposed to be that close to the players, to the playing field. It's not supposed to be.

It's, you know. and I know SRC we don't want to throw the broadcaster under the bus but you know I'm sure privately there were a couple of interesting calls or emails but I've reached out to the broadcaster and asked him for comment and I with this thing why they came back to me at this stage they're not going to comment because it was just an accident and then I replied to the guy and I I said to him, accident is not when you breach world rugby's regulations. He was not supposed to be on the field, period. He's supposed to be five meters back. When I pointed that out to him, he suddenly went quiet and said, we're not going to comment.

So when you have a monopoly, and this is my pet hate, I apologize, I don't want to hijack your podcast here, but my pet hate is the monopoly that this broadcaster has in South Africa. So there's no competition for this broadcaster. They pay SA Rugby and they do what they like. They've got unfiltered, unfettered access to the Springboks. And we get left with 10 minutes at the beginning of a press conference.

You get one question and if you don't ask a question, or you get somebody who asks a really brain dead question and waste three minutes of your time, nobody can use that content and you end up... So that's all because the broadcaster has exclusive rights and monopoly of the game. And to me, that, yeah, you know, in England and New Zealand and everywhere else, the guys, you get unfiltered, even the vloggers or whatever, our podcasters can use the content more than just that first 10 minutes, which often gets taken up by people with fans with cell phones that hijack that first opening 10 minutes. Well, you raised the issue of pet peeves. Now, I'm going to tell you my pet peeve.

This 10-minute rule of Russia or the SA rugby that you can only have a recording of the first 10 minutes. This is like the army. You know, in the old days when you did something wrong, the entire platoon was punished for what one guy did wrong so what happened here last year one of our fellow podcasters would sit in the press conference and when the questions switched over to Afrikaans would stop recording and publish it immediately so that it would be up on his youtube channel right even before the the press conference was over which means he broke the rules like you just said you're the cameraman of the broadcaster like you referred to being on the field breaking the rules so now why do you punish all of us who actually behave and keep the rules for the for the for the the one guy that did it the wrong way he broke the rules he must be punished so what i'm saying is we're trying to get people to you know understand rapid better i know what's going on behind the scenes we're not really fanboys we're trying to have an informed opinion but we get 10 minutes of the of the content sorry that was my pet peeve i just got one that don't worry i definitely support you uh i've asked that question already but um yeah that's that's besides the point is the reasoning also doesn't make sense to me because like you say we get punished because but a lot of that apart from the fact that the the fans with the cell phones or the fans with the laptops uh don't stick to the agenda don't stick to the um adhered protocols that's probably the better word they don't stick to the protocols we now get punished but it also has to do with the broadcaster's exclusivity you know they can sit in that's the other thing is and they can sit into in the press conference the broadcaster and form everything we we ask and then afterwards they get exclusive one-on-one time with so so we we on a on a lose-lose situation here but anyway yeah we still get the job done we still inform our viewers uh one way or another we will inform our viewers yeah you know what john that's just just want to say something you know in closing we have such good relationship with the unions and franchises we know what's going on there we can actually give informed opinions about what's really going on talk to people behind the scenes without fear or favor and we can't do that with the most important team in South Africa, the Springboks. It's like behind a veil, behind like a curtain, like you just said, and it's not the same overseas. Those teams treat them differently.

There are some exceptions. Some of the unions, like I think Wales, are particularly bad at this, but the point is just I don't like this attitude. But anyway, let's move on. Talking about the bomb squad quickly, we said, you know, the big thing is Kouacha Smith is not available. Now, Kouacha is your ultimate hybrid player.

He can actually go play in the back line if he wanted to, and he can cover all the loose forward positions. He might not necessarily be a hooker. But now if you look at a like-for-like replacement in terms of the bomb squad, Paul De Villiers is probably the name that jumps to mind like we just discussed, but he's more of a flanker slash hooker. I don't think he can cover blindside or eighth man, for example. That leaves a bit of a gap in terms of the composition of the bomb squad, don't you think?

Yeah, I also think Paul doesn't have the skill sets of Quagga, but there's not many people in this game that has a skill set of Kwasa. At the Lions, I've got J.C. Peturius. He's got the same skill set, but he just hasn't come through.

I also think he's been struggling with injuries for the last couple of years. So I always thought that J.C. Peturius will come through and fill that role. So at a push, you can push on his number, but I don't think he's had enough game time this year to warrant a look at that or filling that gap.

But that's the closest in terms of skill set, pure skill set, pace, um strength all that stuff and he's the closest thing we have to quagga uh outside the other other guys all the different skill sets so yeah also i think russia is going to find another way of dealing with that you probably find that he'll have three flanks there with one of those flanks being somebody who can play lock you know so i have peter stef the toy there and move him to lock and then bring on another. So you have two breakdown specialists or somebody who can play in general. But the interesting thing that I also said, one of the other interesting things was he's not that concerned about scrums anymore. And I think that it's been proven by the fact that he chose these mobile props, number one, two new and the likes. Volker's probably the slowest of them all.

And then he's saying that he's not going to really go for penalties. It's more about tiring out your opposition and the likes. But scrums are not that important. It's only important when it wins you a World Cup final, and I'm quoting you. That's an interesting sort of change of emphasis, don't you think?

Yeah, I think Rossi has also realised, if you look at the numbers, we used to have 12 or 15 scrums a match. Now, very, very seldom you get near 10 scrums a match. It's like five or six. So you know and if you get like we seen in the UFC final if you get a referee that insists that the ball must be played instead of letting the dominant scrum continue and win a penalty then that value of having that powerful pack and those slow, monstrous props gets diminished. So I think Rossi knows that.

So he wants to have the alternate. Again, and people miss the point. because Russie wants to, he's looking beyond just, yes, we've got this. If we know we're going to play, let's say England, we're going to play England. England comes with a big scrum.

We know England's got big props, and we know England likes set pieces. So how do you counter that? You counter them at source. So we'll go for the big fours. Do you play Wales who like to run all day?

Then you play mobile props. So, yeah, I think it's just Russie thinking ahead, but there's definitely less scrums in the game, and that probably might also be a contributing factor. Yeah, that to me was probably the most eye-opening thing in that podcast. Like I just said, the fact that he might change the squad after the first test even already. That's interesting.

46 players, a lot of players they have in a squad. But interestingly enough, that's probably because, and I already referred to it on our podcast the other day, Jake White told us once that on average, your net injury rate per game, You know, players coming back from injury and players going out of injury, you lose on average one and a half players per match to injury. So, for example, after three matches in this nation's championship, you might have lost four and a half or five players. That already makes a difference. So now the utility side of it becomes even more important.

So what are you thinking in terms of the planning ahead for the All Blacks? Because there's a bit of a short break after that. And then we're right into the All Blacks. And also, the more interesting thing for me as well is the franchises have to prepare for the All Blacks without their frontline players. They've now been off for a month.

It interrupts their UFC preparation. Jan Ockerman spoke about that specifically. What about that side of it? I mean, this is a bit of a, I don't know, poor planning maybe. Yeah, it is a challenge.

It's a really, really tricky challenge to plan. Okay, so let's first take Rossi. I mean, he also mentioned that he's got another 10, 15 players that's on the fringe that are either injured or rested. So he's got 46 players. He had another 15 players.

That means it gives you 60 players. We're already at four teams deep, you know. So you now look at the Bulls team. They've lost, apart from the four guys that are three moved on and one has retired, they also, 12 players are with a spring box. sorry two of those are already left the Bulls so 10 players so they've got the four players that have departed and 10 players with a spring box that's an entire starting 15 for the Bulls so you know that it's going to be a very weak Bulls team second tier and now I'd ask you what is the depth of the Bulls I come and say the youngsters have to step up that question was specifically asking that question and he said these youngsters must now step up it's their opportunities is there.

They get to play the All Blacks and the same at the Lions. The Lions hasn't got that much of the Sharks. They've lost quite a few players with a box. But they've been playing their youngsters the latter part of the URC. And the Stormers have now lost quite a few players.

The Stormers are going to be a challenge as well because I don't think they've got their depth yet. We do know that the Bulls are recruited quite wisely. So you've got Andrew Liebenberg, very seasoned lose forward coming back. And you've got Kirwan Bosch that will fill that gap where Andre Pollard is there. So they will have some depth, but he hasn't got much time.

So the challenge is not whether he's going to have the players. There'll be players there, but does he have enough time with the players? And that's the challenge, because he's first got to give the bulk of his squad time off, and that'll be a week or two. And then in the middle of July, he's got to get them back for some sort of pre-season, as he said, prepare for the All Blacks. Once he's done with the All Blacks game, he's going to taper it off again and start preparing for the URC.

so he's got no real break and pre-season, it's very much what happened to him last year he's without the bulk of almost an entire starting 15 same at the Stormers, less at the Sharks and Lions but that's a massive chunk of players that's missing, that only arrives back in December so there's a massive challenge you start your USC season and the under 23 teams still going to play in the Curry Cup some of those under 23 players will play against the All Blacks and then go back and start playing a Curry Cup again because the Curry Cup starts in July. Right. You know, SA Rugby keeps going on about the 12-month season and what they do is they just add more games to it, you know, make it even worse. By the end of December, we're all going to be crying for the coaches' heads because why are we not winning? But forget about the fact that we didn't allow them to prepare properly, you know, etc.

, etc., etc. We have very short memories, you know, as rugby fans. Okay, just, you know, turning our attention to New Zealand. We just mentioned them, you know, coming to South Africa, franchises have to play against them.

But what's interesting this week is Graeme Henry, who's now a selector of the All Blacks under coach David Rennie, was on our friend Martin Devlin's podcast. And Martin likes poking the bear, if I can call it that. And he said that stirring things up. But we know him. He's also going to be on our podcast during the course of the Greatest Rivalry Tour.

What did Graeme Henry say? He had quite a bit to say about the fact that Rossi is rotating players. so extravagantly almost let's call it that but uh he actually likes it then martin definitely had something to say about that as well you wrote an article to tell us about that yeah yeah so so martin um yes he likes to stir but that's that's what you do in a country like new zealand you need to rile up the people a bit you know we've got some of those guys here as well i mean and luckily they're not as popular or as well known as martin but they he he wanted to stir a bit so he he spoke about the all blacks last year having beaten the spring box in he said three of the four quarters it's actually three of the four halves because it's two matches and graham henry obviously disagreed with him he says yeah we will never uh even though the all blacks also used 46 players last year believe it or not he says no we will never cheapen the all-black jersey so that got grahamie who won the world cup in 2011 uh got a bit upset he's 80 years old so i think his patience is a bit uh thinner and he's wearing a bit thin at the moment so he said to him i don't think russia is cheapening the springbok jersey you know he says in in new zealand we're arrogant about our position and then the fact is new zealand dropped his third or fourth on their world rankings because they lost a few times they also lost on a year-end tour where the spring box didn't so that gap between south africa and new zealand seems to have stretched they said who's the number one team in the world uh and then you know our friend devlin martin devlin tried to stir a bit more and graham henry said to him they've won the try he called it the tri nations and then martin devlin tried to correct him so it's a rugby championship so graham henry typical grammar in fashion said to him rugby champions or whatever they call it, you know, which is quite fun but what he then said is New Zealand's a bit arrogant about their position in world rugby. Martin Devlin wanted to say they can be arrogant, we can be arrogant, we should be arrogant he says no, we need to get our feet back on the ground because we're not going to improve if we don't realise how bad we are. We need to understand and I think that's the big challenge for me.

He understands the game, he understands what needs to be done, he's been there and he knows how to get those guys back in the ground. And that's why I think New Zealand is going to be such a huge threat in the greatest rivalry, rugby's greatest rivalry series. Because you've got guys like that who will remind these players that super rugby is not the be-all and end-all. Just like the UFC doesn't determine the springbok is going to nothing because the springbok team gets elected from players in Japan, players in the Premiership, some guys, you know, all different franchises, and then they play together. So super rugby doesn't, you know, yes, the Hurricanes play a beautiful brand of rugby.

And that's a brand that Dave Rennie is going to want to play with the All Blacks. So maybe also, Russi knows what's coming. That's why he's gone for a more mobile team that can match the All Blacks' mobility. Yeah, let's make no mistake. You know, World Cup is next year.

Greatest rivalry is this year. Everything is building up to the greatest rivalry. And it's going to be the greatest rivalry. I can't wait. I for one.

And it's less than two months away. Yeah. It's just around the corner, man. It's so close. We're so lucky to be talking about spring walks for a while, for a change, you know.

Yeah, moving on. Jan, thank you so much for making time for me. I'm happy we postponed this discussion until after the press conference because we learned a lot there. And, yeah, I'm looking forward. Next week, we'll do another one after the team's been announced for the game against England.

We'll talk about the England side a bit more as well in detail. So, yeah, thank you for that. Appreciate it. It's a pleasure, and it's always lucky to chat. Thanks, man.

Thank you.

Transcript generated automatically — may contain errors.