Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus.
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus has explained why he decided to have surgery after the world champions returned to South Africa following their Autumn Nations Series campaign in Europe.
Erasmus, who had a shoulder replacement, was in severe pain but his recovery from the operation is on track.
Unable to run on the training field
The 52-year-old opted to have the surgery after it became frustrating for him to no longer run on the training field with his players or sometimes get involved in certain exercises himself.
“I really like to train and run with the players,” Erasmus told Sunday newspaper Rapport from the hospital in Johannesburg.
“It’s an old rugby injury.”
Last week, Rapport revealed that Erasmus was having the operation and on Wednesday he confirmed the news via a voice note which he posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, but did not reveal the reason for the operation.
“I wanted to thank the fans for the amazing support this year,” Erasmus said in the post.
“Even when we tried some things and things weren’t going well, you were always standing behind us.
“I’m having a shoulder operation here, I’m not going to show the pictures because I don’t think it’s worth showing. All OK, I think I will be out of the hospital by the weekend.”
Erasmus played for the Springboks as a loose forward in 36 Tests between 1997 and 2001 and also captained his country on one occasion, against the Wallabies in 1999.
Shoulder dislocated during his playing days
During his playing career, he also dislocated his shoulder a few times after putting in some big hits on defence but retired in 2003.
He started his coaching career with the Free State Cheetahs in 2004 and was the Bloemfontein-based outfit’s coach when they won the Currie Cup the following year.
Since then, he also coached Western Province, the Stormers and Munster and became the Springboks head coach in 2018.
From 2020 to 2023 he stepped down from the position to become SA Rugby’s director of rugby – with Jacques Nienaber taking over the coaching reins – but returned as the Boks’ head coach at the start of this year after Nienaber accepted a coaching offer from Irish province Leinster.
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