The Springboks are expecting mind games and some trickery when they meet coach Eddie Jones and his Wallabies in their Rugby Championship opener at Loftus Versfeld next week.
The match will be Jones’s first back in charge of the country of his birth, after being sacked by England and taking over from Dave Rennie at the start of the year.
The 63-year-old Australian, who helped South Africa win the 2007 World Cup, and coached Japan as well, is now in his second spell as Wallabies coach. The first was from 2001 to 2005.
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Experienced as he is, Jones is known as a coach who, according to SA rugby’s director of rugby Rassie Erasmus, has the “guts” to push the boundaries in the game. And therefore the Boks are expecting the unexpected next week.
With Jones already saying that he wants one of his loose-forwards to play on the wing, Erasmus says: “Eddie thinks outside the box, he always plays one or two mind games before a Test. I’m not sure if [saying he wants to play a flank on the wing] is starting it, or if it’s really something. He’s the kind of guy who has the guts to do stuff like that.”
Erasmus and Jones stap al ’n lang pad and the former reckons the latter will bring out the best in Aussies.
He adds: “In 2007, [Jones] was part of the Springboks, I was part of the first three-four weeks. He knows South Africans well, he also took the England job, consulted rugby league teams, so he’s a guy who’s always looking to broaden his coaching vision.
“The big trick with Australia is that I always feel a South African working with a South African brings the best out of that person. An Australian working with Australians just knows how the nation works.
“When [Bok coach] Jacques [Nienaber] and myself took charge of Munster, we took a few months to fully understand how Munster operates.”
On Jones’s mind games, Erasmus reckons: “The mind games thing, I don’t hope it comes out wrong. I admire him a bit. Eddie always has a plan, I don’t think it’s always a matter of trying to disrupt the opposition, I think sometimes he’s trying to get to his own team and to get them to understand how people see them. I’m not saying the mind games is a negative thing at all.”