Social media has been a huge tool for Rassie Erasmus since beginning his tenure with the Springboks in 2018. He's used it to post video rants about refereeing decisions and has used clips of Irish pundits as motivation for the Springboks.
Erasmus is one of the more vocal rugby coaches on Twitter and used it quite frequently as we all know. That's why it came to no surprise to people when Erasmus sent out a cryptic tweet with just a week to go until Ireland and South Africa kick-off their two test series in Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria.
The former Munster Head Coach tweeted an image of a spreadsheet with what appeared to be a predicted 23-man squad for Ireland next week along with their weight, age and total caps.
This is class !! Going to be epic 🇿🇦vs 🇮🇪
Next week this time !! pic.twitter.com/OS4DBcuzsQ— Rassie Erasmus (@RassieRugby) June 29, 2024
It's interesting to see that Erasmus has Andy Farrell going for a 6-2 split with Conor Murray and Ciarán Frawley as the only recognised back subs while Robbie Henshaw misses out on this hypothetical squad entirely.
Erasmus then posted another tweet comparing both the Springboks' and Ireland's average weight, age and caps. They were nearly identical as South Africa narrowly edging Ireland in caps with Erasmus posting a quite apt caption saying "Small Margins !!"
Small Margins !! pic.twitter.com/ObT8GY3JUn
— Rassie Erasmus (@RassieRugby) June 29, 2024
This isn't the first time in the last couple of months there's been talk from the Springboks camp in an attempt to get into the heads of the Irish team. Most notably Eben Etzebeth and Damian de Allende both did interviews where they called out Ireland for being disrespectful and de Allende questioned whether Andy Farrell could motivate this Irish squad because he's not from Ireland.
For their part the Ireland camp has remained very quiet with Mike Catt saying that the squad aren't particularly worried about what the Springboks are saying.
It'll be interesting to see how accurate Erasmus is in his team selection, although at this stage the Ireland starting team is fairly predictable barring injuries.
This two-test series is one of the most highly anticipated series in a long time and let's hope that the actions lives up to the build up.
