South Africa head coach Jacques Nienaber has defined that the visitors mild signalling system utilized by the Springboks workers throughout their win over Scotland was used to ship messages associated to accidents.
Assistant coach Felix Jones and Rassie Erasmus, who coached South Africa to Rugby World Cup victory 4 years in the past and is now director of rugby, have been seen holding up completely different colored lights throughout the Pool B encounter, with some hypothesis on social media that it was to inform the gamers whether or not to go for the posts or kick to the nook from penalties.
It was not the primary time such a system had been used, with Erasmus having accomplished so in South African home rugby the most effective a part of twenty years in the past whereas coach of the Cheetahs.
The novel technique of speaking with workers on-field did catch the attention, although, with Nienaber revealing {that a} earlier go to to the noisy Stade Velodrome had prompted a special method.
(Rugby World/World Rugby by way of X)
“In terms of the lights, it started here probably when we played France in Marseille [in November 2022],” he stated after South Africa acquired their World Cup defence underway with an 18-3 win.
“I don’t know if you’ve been pitch-side but in this dome, the sound is phenomenal. You can’t hear anything.
“It’s for us, because there are a lot of [radio] channels we are working in and talking in, it’s sometimes tough for us to talk to our support staff. I think a lot of teams will have systems – is it red, is it green – for the extent of the injury or the knock and how serious it is. It’s just for us to communicate with support staff.”
The Springboks misplaced influential lock Eben Etzebeth to harm throughout the first half of the conflict in Marseille.
Nienaber, Erasmus and Jones beforehand labored collectively at Irish province Munster earlier than becoming a member of South Africa in 2017, and the top coach, architect of the defensive system that smothered Scotland, remembers utilizing an analogous signalling system there.
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“I think you can do hand signals if you want,” Nienaber continued when requested if he had sought permission from governing physique World Rugby earlier than using the system, “I don’t think you need permission from World Rugby. It’s a method. When I was at Munster, the call was red if it was a serious thing and we must consider a substitution.
“Amber is ‘listen, let’s give this guy five minutes to see if he’s OK’ and green is ‘it’s OK, he can go on’. It was something we used Munster in 2016 or 2017 and something we continue with.
“If we talk on a radio, we talk tactics. If we [also] talk to medical people about injuries, it just consumes the channels.”
Jones, capped 13 instances by Ireland between 2011 and 2015, will depart the Springboks set-up on the conclusion of the event to affix Steve Borthwick’s England workers.
