SA Rugby director of rugby Rassie Erasmus.
Before Rassie Erasmo’ morning rant on Twitter aimed at Nick MallettSA Rugby’s director of rugby first sent the former Springbok manager a WhatsApp message.
But the WhatsApp message was deleted before Mallett could read it when he woke up on Saturday morning.
Mallett confirmed to the Afrikaans newspaper Rapport that he had received a deleted WhatsApp message from Erasmus in 03:32 Saturday morning.
This follows news on Saturday that Erasmus took to Twitter to criticize Mallett for comments he made about SuperSport. final whistle show the previous weekend.
Mallett had criticized the coaching structures at SA Rugby, saying that Erasmus “shouldn’t be on social media talking about the Springboks”.
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At 04:47 on Saturday, Erasmus tweeted a scathing voice note that was evidently addressed to Mallett, saying the TV commentator did not know what the role of rugby manager entailed.
“I struggled to sleep because I was really upset by his comments last week about final whistlesaid Erasmus.
“It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just the things you said without any substance behind it. Nick, I’ll tell you straight up, you don’t know what a rugby manager is or what their job is.”
“Obviously, I’m not appointing coaches. Go ahead and read the thing, I have no authority to appoint coaches.
“The second thing is that I have a program in place called ‘the fast track for elite black players’, who have not had a chance in Super Rugby and URC and we are accelerating them. We have a sponsor for that and we are proud of that programme. “.
Erasmus continued on the more than two minute tirade, saying that he “loved” Mallett but that he shouldn’t “talk nonsense to people”. He also defended his incessant tweets about the Springboks, especially about refereeing.
“When you start saying things like, I have to hit the refs and stop tweeting [about] the Springboks… the Springboks are the most important thing, that’s my first priority, and I’ll do anything for the Springboks to win,” Erasmus said.
“So please don’t stop me at all there. You said I have to bring the refs, yes we do bring refs but it has to be accepted by World Rugby.”
“If you can help in any way there, it would be great if you could help us.
“Nick, I’m not going to fight you in any way. I’m just saying that between what happens on the field and what you guys show on your SuperSport show, somewhere is the truth.”
“I would suggest [that you] stay close to that truth because currently, you are very far from that truth and you are losing the ball by quite some distance.
“Obviously, you know me well. I love you and I thought you were a guy with great [inaudible term] but unfortunately mate I’m going to have to rectify you and send you some stats and post this (voice memo).
“You can’t talk about this sh*t to people.”
Mallett said he was unable to see what Erasmus had written in the WhatsApp message at 03:32 as it was deleted when he woke up.
He declined to comment further on the matter.
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