South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus says the traffic light system his side has used from the coaches' box at the Rugby World Cup has "basically four different meanings and it changes every game."
"Sometimes you can say over the microphone 'listen they're green' and that means something for the physios and doctors," Erasmus said at a press conference on Tuesday.
"We get live updates of the players. When we make substitutions we sometimes want info back from the physio and S&C coaches. What they think, which player is the least effective or dynamic and when we do substitutions we need information.
"Some people think it's kicks, other people think it's 'play slower', other people think it's 'kick wide' but for us, it is just a way of communication.
"In the first game, I was sitting on the bench with the bench players. A very nice match commissioner said I couldn't sit there. I said I didn't know, I don't want to cause trouble but I have sat here for all the other matches. He said to me no, it was an addendum to the participation agreement.
"In the match, I had to move up to the coaches and that is when we started putting on the lights as I couldn't talk to the medical staff. So it's really just a form of communication, to get messages to players but to know what medical and S&C staff are thinking."
23 September 2023; South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus talks to assistant referee Mathieu Raynal before the 2023 Rugby World Cup Pool B match between South Africa and Ireland at Stade de France in Paris, France. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Erasmus also admitted that in the past, South Africa "got it wrong" in their relationship with referees. The former Munster head coach received a lengthy stadium ban following the Lions tour of South Africa in 2021 for an infamous hour-long video criticising referee Nic Berry.
Last year, he was banned for two matches after he posted videos on social media highlighting perceived officiating errors following defeats to Ireland and France.
South Africa's discipline at this Rugby World Cup has been good. They are yet to be shown a card.
"For us the first word is respect," said Erasmus.
"I think definitely we got it wrong in stages especially when we had the year off with Covid and we went into the Lions series. The levels of communication was really tough and was really, even when we played our 100th game against New Zealand we were in a bubble in Australia. world rugby couldn't be there and the Lions series they couldn't be there because of Covid. So it was tough to get better and better communication and I guess on both sides it led to frustration.
"Last year I had a phone call with [former referee] Nigel Owens and I said 'we really want to get this right, we don't want people not to like us. That is not the reason for us, maybe sometimes having differences and doing things in a way just to get a response.'
"We wanted to know how things worked and I must say what we learned from that conversation is that no matter if we are right the respect you show to the referee you will get back from that referee, even if he makes mistakes or you make mistakes.
"We also had to adapt our game a little bit. If you only rely on maul, it is difficult to referee a maul. If you only rely on a scrum, it's difficult to referee a scrum.
"I'll be honest with you, there was one tweet I tweeted especially after the France game [in 2022], I was quite honest and serious about it. We had to change our game to make it easier for referees. So it's not always this [crunch] thing to work out who is or isn't dominant. That there is also free flowing passes and open tries which was a really honest. Guys also worked hard on level change [on tackles].
"So yes no cards, I think we are fourth lowest for penalty count. We had to earn it back, we had to earn the respect back and I think it is showing at this stage that it works both ways."
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