Rassie shares the recipe to build a World Cup winning Springbok team

What is the Springbok rugby team’s recipe for success?

 “The best process wins,” Dr Rassie Erasmus said during a guest lecture at North-West University (NWU) on 24 February where he spoke about his coaching staff’s motto within the Springbok camp. This means through trial and error a process is created for every team goal, which helps to construct a template for success.

According to the Springbok coach steps within this process include: getting the right people to work with, getting them to work together, demonstrating how you want them to work together by leading through example, ensuring they put in effort and measuring the results of their effort to evolve with your players; and then finally, always ensuring that you improve on every aspect of these steps within this process.

Bringing this process into context Erasmus adds: “The end goal for us is to win the World Cup. In between the [rugby] world cups, it is to build squads to be able to win a World Cup. Even more importantly, this year is the [2027] World Cup draw at the end of the year, so being in a good position on the world rugby log [at the end of the year] is one of our goals”.

Erasmus, who in 2024 received an honorary doctorate from the NWU, was invited by the Faculty of Health Sciences, to deliver the guest lecture, which he titled “From the Sidelines to the Spotlight: Insights from a Back-to-back World Cup Winning Rugby Coach”. Earlier yesterday (24 February) he joined Springbok captain Siya Kolisi at an event when the Dennepark rugby residence was renamed the Siya Kolisi residence while another residence for athletes was named Invictus.

In a PowerPoint presentation he outlined critical areas of high performance his team focused on to achieve success.

The identification, retention, and recruitment of players are important blocks identified towards building a strong foundation, while a well-rounded assessment and strategy on the game-plan helps shape up the team’s performance, he said.

The second critical area of high performance magnified by Erasmus was leadership and ownership, which included the roles that players have in the team.

“In the Springbok setup, ownership means taking responsibility for one’s role, working hard, and being fully prepared for training and matches,” he said

Player nutrition, mental, and physical conditioning also play a significant part – with Erasmus noting that parents and teachers contribute to the overall development of young athletes.

Additionally, Erasmus emphasised the collective technical and tactical role of coaches to prepare players for competitions. At the heart of it, he stressed, coaching does not stand alone in high performance environments.

“If you don’t use all cultures, all brains, and all knowledge, then you are probably always catching up,” he said.

Internal and external characteristics

In his presentation Erasmus also gave some insights about “External Signs of World Cup Winning Teams” and “Internal Characteristics of World Cup Winning Teams”.

He listed signs of enjoyment and fullfilment, a refusal to accept defeat and players producing high work rates and low error rates as external signs of winning teams.

Erasmus added: “We want people to think we enjoy what we do. We love what we do, and we do not want to pretend to do so…We want the refusal to be defeated. People must see [that] we do not give up.”

When speaking about the internal characteristics of a winning team, he mentioned aspects such as the mission [of the group], team harmony, discipline, ability and superior discontent, which meant having an insatiable drive to always improve.

Closing the event, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the NWU Professor Bismark Tyobeka said Erasmus’ overall statements aligned with the achievements the university has also set for itself.

“Dr. Rassie spoke of the vital importance of identifying and nurturing talent, through strategic goal-setting, a process that mirrors our own. He wanted to win the World Cup. What we want to achieve as North-West University [is] to be a world-class university, renowned for our excellence in teaching and learning, and cutting-edge research and innovation and intentional community engagement”.

The vice-chancellor added: “Just as he [Erasmus] and his team take ownership of their journey to success, we too must take pride in our collective achievements, grounded in teamwork and collaboration”.

Born on 5 November 1972, Erasmus began his rugby career in the Free State in 1994, playing for the Cheetahs before earning his first international cap in July 1997. He first led the Springboks as captain in 1999 in a semi-final against Australia and retired at the end of the 2003 season, following a short spell with the Stormers.

He was part of the coaching team when the Springboks won the rugby World Cup for a record fourth time in France in 2025. – Written by Tiisetso Nteleki and Lesiba Dikhoba