{"id":578656,"date":"2025-11-18T16:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/578656\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T16:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:55:13","slug":"villain-rassie-erasmus-innovations-labelled-bullsht-by-ireland-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/578656\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Villain’ Rassie Erasmus’ innovations labelled ‘bullsh*t’ by Ireland legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland legend Keith Wood has called on World Rugby laws to be changed to reduce the number of substitutions allowed in a game to just five, claiming that it will make the game more \u201cinteresting\u201d and will require the players to be \u201cfitter\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking to rugby hospitality company, Vision 4 Sport<\/a>, Wood credited Springbok<\/a> head coach Rassie Erasmus<\/a> for his innovative ideas, which could allow for the reduction of substitutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like some of the innovations; others are bullshit,\u201d the former World Player of the Year said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s pushing the laws, but he has the ability, and this is where the innovation has been excellent, to identify players who can actually play in, say, four positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wouldn\u2019t have been thought of before. It\u2019s Esterhuizen going into the back row at the weekend. I would like there to be only four or five subs in a game. And what Rassie has done is proven that actually is possible because you can get players who cover different positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rugby is about creating space<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all well and good calling for fewer replacements, but what\u2019s the benefit? Well, Wood has the answer \u2013 space.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have five subs, and that makes it interesting. You\u2019re also asking players to be fitter and able to last longer, and not to have an expectation of going off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not a great amount of joy in a front row for 70 minutes or 50 minutes, then they bring on a whole new team when you\u2019re just getting on top of them. I liken it to being in the eighth or ninth round of a boxing match and they just changed the boxer!<\/p>\n

\u201cRassie\u2019s thinking has been phenomenal in that multi-use of player. Within that thinking could be, in my view, the saving of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou actually want people to be fitter and smaller. We\u2019re happy to have big guys, but we want space. There are a couple of guys who bely that, Will Skelton being one who can play 80 minutes, which means he\u2019s truly extraordinary. But an awful lot of others can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure coaches would hate that. But you\u2019re trying to have something that is affordable, so you\u2019re talking fewer players, less match fees, and a whole variety of other things, maybe a couple fewer coaches, maybe smaller squads.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might take a period of time to do that. It might take a World Cup cycle to wean teams off 23 players down to 20.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springboks coach doesn\u2019t want to be \u2018banned like Rassie\u2019 but hits out at \u2018unfair\u2019 treatment after \u2018worse\u2019 incidents<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Springboks squad strength<\/p>\n

Ireland will welcome South Africa to the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, and Keith Wood knows that his former side needs to be prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Rassie, but not very well,\u201d said the 53-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of collided with each other a bit when we played against each other. I got to meet him when he was in Munster. He plays the villain, and at times, he is the villain!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also deflects everything away from the team. He has built breakaway thinking from a lot of South African teams of the past. Yes, he has a huge pack of forwards; in fact, he has two huge packs of forwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa has big forwards that play really well and a good kicking ten, but they are promoting speed and attacking wingers, smaller players, better than anyone else. I love watching them play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu has been overlooked for World Rugby Award<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Springboks\u2019 incredible strength in depth<\/p>\n

The Springboks have strength in depth like no other side in world rugby, and Wood does not expect that to end any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blooding has happened and will continue to happen. On the age profile, rarely does that get mentioned with South Africa, who are two-time world champions in a row. A lot of those guys are on the far side of 30, which is extraordinary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve managed those resources incredibly well. I don\u2019t get it cut up about it. You have to be cognizant of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoyalty is a two-way street. If those players can do a job in the wider squad and you end up with two squads, almost, and you can keep them all intact, I\u2019m really good with that. I don\u2019t want to get rid of people for the sake of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland legend Keith Wood has called on World Rugby laws to be changed to reduce the number of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[225,90462,12,4151,2196,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-578656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-home-page","9":"tag-internationals","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-rugby","12":"tag-south-africa","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115571754565970292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}