If South Africa are to stand any chance of levelling the series in Saturday’s second Test, Rassie Erasmus must be in a suit in the stands playing no part in any matchday decisions.
Confusion at the top and a lack of demarcation between the roles of director of rugby Erasmus and South Africa national team coach Jacques Nienaber is killing the Springboks.
There can only ever be one man in charge in match week and on match day — and that has to be the coach.
Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus on the pitch during Saturday's first Test against the Lions
The Lions will have been disappointed with their first half, but their leadership went to work and found a way back, just as South Africa became fragmented and confused. I put that entirely down to their coaching dynamic. Warren Gatland and his backroom team were in a different league.
Erasmus has had his day as coach, he did a brilliant job fashioning a Boks team in a short time good enough to win the 2019 World Cup. But that was his moment, Nienaber is now in charge.
They are friends, they worked together at the Free State, the Stormers and Munster but the dynamic has changed. Nienaber must now be in charge of the team, he is the main man, but on this tour you would never know it.
It is clear that Erasmus has started taking over again, he is running around in a tracksuit and donning the water carrier bib even though — as Gatland observed last week — he never seems to dispense any water, nor even carry a bottle! He never forgets his clipboard, though.
It looked comical, it was comical, and I am surprised South African Rugby are allowing it to happen.
Erasmus is still coaching the team in all but name, but that’s not his job. He needs to butt out.
Confusion over the roles of Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber (right) is killing the Springboks
His job now is to appoint the coaching team and let them get on with it, offering advice when asked but no more. He has become centre stage again. All the pre-match banter is conducted between him and Gatland — and Warren is eating him for breakfast.
And it’s affecting the team. South Africa are making bad decisions. Their starting front row were excellent on Saturday and should have stayed on as a group until deep into the second half. Instead they were pulled off at half-time and the so-called Bomb Squad called on, a relic of Erasmus’s ploy at the World Cup.
And why on earth would you pull Faf de Klerk and Handre Pollard off in the closing stages when one try could still have decided the match?
And who in the South Africa camp is coming up with a game-plan that involves Willie le Roux kicking aimlessly from full back and the world’s best wing — Cheslin Kolbe — being starved of possession?
Kolbe is a modern-day Jason Robinson — he is so good you need to involve your entire game-plan around him, not send him to Coventry.
Lions head coach Warren Gatland is currently winning the pre-match banter with Erasmus
Nienaber is not a big name but he is a very experienced coach in his homeland and has also worked with the Springboks previously. He does not need protection, he needs a free run at the job.
I’ve never been wholly convinced as to the world-beating qualities of this South Africa team, even though they are the world champions. Their reputation is built pretty much wholly on their
