Rassie Erasmus has become the closest thing rugby has to a living myth. To Springbok fans, the man is immortal: the mastermind behind two consecutive World Cup triumphs in 2019 and 2023, the tactical genius who turned a fractured squad into the most feared team on the planet, the meme-lord director of rugby whose dry humour and savage one-liners have made him a social-media deity.
When SA Rugby announced last month that Erasmus will remain in the set-up at least until after the 2027 World Cup in Australia, the collective sigh of relief from Cape Town to Pretoria could probably be heard in Perth. Officially, the plan is perfect: he steps away from day-to-day head-coaching duties at the end of the 2025/26 season, hands the clipboard to his long-time lieutenant Jacques Nienaber (or whoever earns the nod), and slides into a senior “Director of Rugby” role where he can still pull every string without the weekly migraine of selection press conferences.
Yet beneath the polished press release, the rumour mill is spinning faster than a Duane Vermeulen clear-out. Insiders in Stellenbosch and Cape Town’s southern suburbs whisper that Rassie is exhausted—not physically, but emotionally and politically. The last five years have been an unending soap opera: bans for his infamous hour-long video referee rant in 2021, constant sniping from northern-hemisphere commentators who accuse him of “turning rugby into wrestling,” the Eben Etzebeth eye-gouge saga that has once again put Springbok discipline under the microscope, and the endless social-media warfare he himself helped create.
One well-placed source close to the Saru high-performance centre claims Erasmus recently told friends, half-joking, half-serious: “I’ve won everything twice. Now every week someone wants to burn me at the stake for something new. I’m tired of being the villain in someone else’s story.”
The theory gaining traction is that Erasmus might not wait until 2027. There is growing chatter that he could step upstairs—or sideways—as early as the end of the 2026 Six Nations/Triple Crown tour. The lure? A lucrative, low-scrutiny consultancy role with a cash-rich European club (Leinster, Toulouse and even a mystery English Premiership side have apparently made discreet approaches) or perhaps a complete sabbatical to spend time with his family, something he has barely done since 2018. Those close to him say the Etzebeth citing was a tipping point: watching one of his loyal lieutenants face a potential 12-week ban for what many in the Springbok camp consider standard Test-match physicality left Erasmus privately livid at World Rugby’s perceived double standards. “He feels he’s fighting the same battles on loop,” one agent told me. “Win the World Cup and they love you for five minutes, then it’s back to being public enemy number one.”
Publicly, Erasmus laughs it off. His Twitter (now X) account still fires off cryptic emojis and Springbok-green hearts whenever retirement rumours surface. But even his famous sense of humour has an edge these days. When a journalist asked him last week about “burnout,” he replied, “Burnout? No. I just want to drink red wine on a farm and watch other people get death threats for a while.”
For now, the immortal Rassie remains in post, plotting the defence of the Webb Ellis Cup and the assault on the 2025 British & Irish Lions. But in quiet moments, those who know him best say you can see it in his eyes: the man who outsmarted the world twice is wondering whether the third act is worth the war. If he does walk early, the Springboks will still have his blueprint, his culture, his bombsquad. Yet rugby will lose one of its great theatre directors long before anyone is ready for the curtain to fall.
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