Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett lauds Rassie Erasmus for all but stamping out provincialism and getting their compatriots behind the back-to-back world champions.

Mallett, in the latest Rassie+ podcast, believes Erasmus has succeeded where his predecessors have failed, and how public support has become a key strength of the national team.

Mallett, who coached South Africa to a record 17 straight Test wins between 1997 and 1998, was Erasmus’ coach for most of his 36-cap career.

Reflecting on the pressures of coaching the Boks, the ex-Stade Francais and Italy chief acknowledged how difficult media scrutiny had been during his time.

“A media person can turn the public against you in no time at all,” Mallett recalled. “With the Gary [Teichmann] thing, the whole of Durban and Natal turned on me. I couldn’t go and visit there without getting something thrown at me.

“Because I was English-speaking and didn’t speak Afrikaans, I didn’t have support in Bloemfontein. And in the end, I was probably not supported by any of the media.”

Yet Mallett praised Erasmus for how he has shifted the narrative. “What you’ve done is not go out and ask them to support you, it’s giving them information. Enough that they understand what you’re trying to do,” he said.

“Then they understand better why you play a certain way or make certain changes. And what you’ve created – and the only Springbok coach who’s done it – is to make the Springboks bigger than the provinces, which it always should be.”

Erasmus, who helped guide the Boks to World Cup glory in 2019 and 2023, said understanding the media’s role was something he had to learn the hard way.

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“I for sure didn’t have an understanding of the media in my first five years of coaching,” the former Cheetahs and Stormers coach admitted. “I totally bugged it up. I actually thought they were the enemy.”

He said things changed for him when he got the Bok job in 2018, as the national setup started engaging media and fans more proactively.

“When we started everybody was hashtag this, hashtag that and they came up with #StrongerTogether and we had a workshop and we said, ‘but what does stronger together mean?’

“The players and coaches do the main job: coach well, play well. But the media, if we keep them informed in the right way – not giving secrets – then they report correctly, and fans better understand what they see on Saturday.”

Mallett agreed: “Now you got to Greenpoint Stadium, there’ll be 38,000 supporters and the Bulls are playing; there’ll be Bulls supporters in the crowd but everyone’s having a good time. No one’s saying, ‘we’re gonna donner [beat up] a oke or have a fight.

“Collectively, we support the Springboks, that’s what drives the country at the moment. And the local competition is important but not in the way that it was in those days, it was almost a political thing in those days.

“To transform the team and still win – that was your biggest challenge. And hell, you’ve done that well.”

Erasmus added: “There was this tribal thing [in the past] and people even counted – the Bulls were winning the Currie Cup, why is there only six Bulls players in, why is there only five Stormers or two Cheetahs?

“You had to deal with stuff like that because it [media engagement] wasn’t fully professional, people didn’t understand that you can track players and there’s stats and all that.”

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