Rassie Erasmus has been praised after swooping in for Felix Jones’ services after his exit from the England coaching team with the Irishman’s stint likened to an espionage mission.
Jones won two Rugby World Cup titles with the Springboks before departing the set-up in order to be closer to his family and take up a gig with Steve Borthwick’s England coaching team.
The Irishman would have learned plenty from his stint in the Northern Hemisphere and will undoubtedly take that intel with him to South Africa.
Felix Jones’ spy mission
Due to the briefness of his stint and swift return to the Springboks, a conspiracy theory has jokingly gathered pace suggesting that Jones was merely on an espionage mission collecting intel on England and other Six Nations teams.
Erasmus added fuel to that fire with his comments welcoming the Irishman back.
“After spending some time in England, his experience of working in the UK and studying the opposition teams in the Six Nations and other international tournaments will add immense value in assisting us to adapt and improve as we cast an eye on a tough international season ahead,” he said.
Former Ireland winger Shane Horgan doesn’t ‘subscribe’ to the conspiracy theory that Erasmus purposely let Jones leave only for him to return but admits that his fellow countryman will be incredibly useful for the back-to-back World Cup winners.
“We are all playing draughts and Rassie is playing 3D chess – he’s thinking about the bigger picture,” Horgan joked on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast.
Springboks fans are all saying the same thing after Felix Jones’ return to Rassie Erasmus’ team
“I’m just surprised that Felix didn’t do a stint in Ireland at one of the camps there or the Lions, but no, he’s coming back with his sack full of files.
“I don’t think it was planned, I don’t subscribe to that particular conspiracy theory but my God it’s been useful for him and very useful for South Africa.”
Host Alex Payne added: “It just builds the cult of Rassie Erasmus even more, you wouldn’t have ever stuck that on a Steve Borthwick necessarily, or a Gregor Townsend but because it’s Rassie, it’s like it has to be an agenda.”
Mastermind Irishman
Meanwhile, ex-France hooker Benjamin Kayser was taken aback by just how pivotal Jones was to the Springboks’ success during their Rugby World Cup campaigns.
This after he saw a highlight reel of the Irishman’s best moments from the Chasing the Sun docuseries with Jones pinpointing weak points in France’s game.
“He’s so clever, so different thinking that you think if there’s one guy who would be able to put this together, it would be him,” Kayser said of Erasmus.
On Jones, he added: “But on a side note, when they announced that he was going back, there was like a little highlight reel of his time with South Africa and all you could see was him with a laptop saying: ‘Right lads, this is what we have we’re facing’.
“Obviously, Rassie is very important, but I didn’t really know that he was a lot of the mastermind in dissecting teams and picking out how you could get them.
“I could tell that the sort of pressure and this whole thing that you need to get them to scrummage more idea against France was really from him. I didn’t know how much of a mastermind he was into in terms of strategy, so using him as a spy – if he is a spy- bloody hell, that was a good idea, you’ve sent a proper weapon.”
Disappointment for Ireland
Horgan again added that he doesn’t believe it was all an espionage mission, but when Jones became available again, the intel he had on England and other nations certainly played a role in Erasmus reaching out.
He did rue the fact that one of the world’s brightest young coaches wasn’t using that intel for his country.
“If Rassie didn’t put him in there, I bet you it was a factor in re-engaging with him – it certainly had to be,” he added.
“There is a disappointing thing here from an Ireland perspective. I would be surprised if there wasn’t a conversation at some level with him, I’d say that almost certainly had to have been.
“I’m not privy to it, but David Humphreys [Irish Rugby Football Union performance director] would be the man now to have that conversation – I don’t know to what extent that was to put him in as Munster head coach, but I think that would have been difficult as well because he hasn’t had a head coaching job.
“But what you want to do is get him in the system to some degree, it might have been difficult to get him in the Irish system given you know the way it’s structured at the moment, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted anything but a top provincial job.
“So it is disappointing because he obviously has a massive rugby intellect and property and that would be better served for Ireland than South Africa with him being an Irish guy.”
READ MORE: Rassie Erasmus reveals that ‘icon’ Siya Kolisi has ‘shifted’ his mind about Springboks captaincy
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/felix-jones-return-builds-the-cult-of-rassie-erasmus-even-more-as-springboks-boss-praised-for-espionage-mission
