World Cup-winning Springbok boss Rassie Erasmus says he learned a lot from former national team coach Peter de Villiers.
In a video shared on Wednesday by a Twitter account claiming to belong to Peter de Villiers, Erasmus gives credit to the man who first introduced him to the Bok group in a coaching capacity.
A technical consultant then, Erasmus says: “In 2011, Peter de Villiers asked me to join him at the World Cup after the Stormers stint - I never had any connection to SA Rugby prior to that.
“I owe him a lot - that was a great experience in New Zealand with him and Gary Gold and Dick Muir.”
Valuable coaching lessons learnt by #russieeramus former @Springboks head coach from Coach PDV #WednesdayWisdom #WakandaForever #Rugby #britishlionstour . #Skillstransfer pic.twitter.com/Aa3fOgwMC9
— Peter De Villiers (@PeterDeVillier5) September 2, 2020
The Boks with the likes of Victor Matfield, John Smit, Jean de Villiers and Bryan Habana in their squad, suffered a heartbreaking 11-9 defeat to Australia in the quarterfinal of the tournament.
Erasmus says: “The way Peter managed that senior group - I learned a lot from Nick [Mallett], Peet Kleynhans and a lot of other coaches - I learned a lot from Peter, how he managed that specific group, because there was a lot of strong personalities.
“There are a lot of things I’ve learnt from him that I am trying to incorporate in the way I do things currently. I am trying to do a lot of things like he did.
“The way we coached that specific team - there was a lot of experience in there, but they weren’t always match-fit they were almost on the old side.
“That team was so ready to win the World Cup and I really think they were well coached with Peter leading the setup.”