Two shaved heads and five words on Sunday morning. By Sunday evening the whole Springboks management had followed, and nobody will say what the bet was.
Rassie Erasmus lost a bet. “The prize of a bet 🙈” was the whole caption on Sunday’s photo of the Springboks head coach and his scrum coach Daan Human, both shaved to the skin, the day after Baltimore.
View this post on Instagram: Rassie Erasmus and Daan Human, both shaved, the first post
Nobody knows what the bet was. Which is why a Rassie Erasmus shaved head travelled further on Monday than a 3-1 series win. It paid out the day after South Africa finished the four-Test series against the All Blacks. SA Rugby magazine asked first, on Monday morning, and Erasmus is not telling.
The two captions that followed narrow it more than anyone has admitted, and the captain’s has a number in it. So, before the evidence: series bet, or the boss’s 100th Test? Say which below, then see if the captions change your mind.
The three posts, in the order they landed
The first picture was two men. Three hours later, by IOL’s clock, a second one appeared on the same account. The whole Springboks management group, shaved, media manager Zeena Isaacs among them according to Rugby365. The caption this time:
“Reels is Reels 💙🇿🇦👴”
Rassie Erasmus, Instagram, Sunday 13 September
View this post on Instagram: the whole Springboks management group shaved, captioned Reels is Reels
Spelled that way it reads like a joke about the platform. Read in Afrikaans, reëls is reëls, it means rules are rules, which is how IOL translated it. Rules that bind an entire management group, media manager included, were agreed before Sunday. Everyone in that room knew the trigger.
Then the captain posted. Kolisi, alongside Erasmus, shaved:
“Special day for the boss @rasrugby 100 up 🙏🏾❤️ Danko coach, iyabulela ilali 🇿🇦 #bleskop”
Siya Kolisi, his Instagram post, Sunday 13 September
View this post on Instagram: Siya Kolisi and Rassie Erasmus shaved, captioned 100 up #bleskop
Bleskop is Afrikaans for a bald head. Iyabulela ilali is isiXhosa, roughly the village gives thanks. And “100 up” is the only number in any of the three captions.
The Rassie Erasmus shaved head has a date on it
Baltimore was Erasmus’s 100th Test in charge of South Africa. The first was also in the United States, a 22-20 defeat by Wales in Washington DC, eight years and two World Cups ago. Baltimore was win number 74 of the hundred. One theory doing the rounds on Monday had the shave marking his 100th win. It was not. It was his 100th Test, and the captain’s caption is the one that says so.
None of that proves the terms. Kolisi may have joined the bet or just the celebration. What the three posts do establish is the order of things. The coaches paid first, then the management. The captain turned up last with the reason written down. Whatever was agreed, it was agreed before Baltimore, and it paid out on the coach’s day.
Erasmus himself had spent Saturday night refusing to call his team the better side, and said who they play for instead. He also said this:
“I know we sometimes annoy other people around the world for the way [we] go about things, or the angle we take on issues, but we really care the most about South African people.”
Rassie Erasmus, post-match press conference, M&T Bank Stadium, Saturday 12 September
A coach who says out loud that he annoys people, then posts his own bald head, is behaving exactly as advertised.
The other man in the photo was the argument of the series
Human is the reason the photo matters. A Springboks prop with four caps and 169 games for Toulouse, he has run South Africa’s scrum for six years, and he farms. When Dave Rennie said the Springboks scrum was walking around opponents, stepping sideways instead of pushing straight, he also confirmed that New Zealand had taken it to World Rugby. Human’s reply in Johannesburg did not mention a law.
“I’m a farmer. I’m just a normal straight guy. So I can’t cheat.”
Daan Human, Springboks press conference, Johannesburg, the week of the third Test
And the line underneath it, which was the whole case:
“If you say we’re walking around, then we’ve been walking around for the past six years.”
Either every referee in the game missed it for six years, or it is not there. Kieran Read, the former All Blacks captain, was asked directly on a New Zealand podcast and would not say it was illegal.
Kyle Sinckler went through the series scrum by scrum with Dan Biggar, 68 England caps at tighthead, and found one Springboks scrum in three Tests that walked around. Ellis Park, Gerhard Steenekamp on for Ox Nché, and Sinckler said Matthew Carley was right to blow it. Every other one, on his reading, was clean.
So the World Rugby complaint went nowhere and the pundits from both hemispheres sided with the farmer. The series finished 3-1. Then Human shaved his head. It is the first thing he has conceded in a month.
A scrum coach’s series is scored in penalties, not tries
New Zealand scored more tries than South Africa across the four Tests, 17 to 14. It did not matter, because a scrum penalty arrives with a choice attached. Three points, or a lineout five metres out with a maul behind it. Either way the side with the stronger eight decides what happens next.
| Test | What the scrum produced |
|---|---|
| Ellis Park, lost 16-33 | Three straight Springboks scrum penalties after half-time, and Pieter-Steph du Toit twice waved the posts away to scrum again. Then one New Zealand penalty on their own line at 19-16, straight after the All Blacks changed their front row, and the Test went with it. |
| Cape Town, won 33-26 | One scrum penalty all night. New Zealand won every scrum on their own ball and lost by seven. |
| Soweto, won 29-24 | A penalty try from a five-metre scrum with Ruben Love in the sin bin, four scrum penalties, and a 20-metre maul off one of them for Malcolm Marx’s try. |
| Baltimore, won 43-28 | Not the weapon. Fletcher Newell won a penalty against Nché before half-time. Steenekamp’s first scrum on 48 won one back, and the corner lineout and Marx’s maul try followed. |
Source: WeTalkRugby match records for all four Tests.
The tell for anyone watching at home sits in that first row. When a pack turns down three points to scrum again, it is telling you what the scrum coach told it in the week. Du Toit did it twice at Ellis Park and the referee gave the next one to New Zealand. Two weeks later in Soweto the same pack asked for a scrum a metre out with a man advantage, and Nika Amashukeli ran under the posts.
The case that it is just a haircut
A head coach and a farmer with a set of clippers is a Sunday post. The terms are private and will probably stay private. Nobody in any of the three photos has said the bet was about rugby at all.
And Baltimore is an awkward exhibit for the idea that Human won the argument of the series. The Springboks scrum was par at best on Saturday, and Dan Biggar’s view that New Zealand played the better rugby is not a lonely one.
All fair. None of it moves the table. Ellis Park is the one Test South Africa lost, and the table says why. The complaint Rennie started was taken to World Rugby and answered by a former All Blacks captain and an England tighthead, and both of them said what the farmer said.
The hair was the cheapest thing anyone lost in this series. Nine All Blacks flew home injured and Cheslin Kolbe broke his jaw inside ten minutes in Soweto. Human lost a bet, and a management group that had just gone 3-1 lined up behind him to pay it. What the terms were is still the only thing missing.
Read next:
– Siya Kolisi was asked what he would sing after Baltimore and sang it. The captain’s other post from the weekend.
– Rassie Erasmus was offered the scrum vindication after Soweto and handed it back. The coach’s version of the argument Human won.
– Steve Hansen and Ewen McKenzie named six reasons South Africa led the series. Two of them cannot be coached. The scrum can.
Your turn: series bet or 100th-Test bet?
Two ways to read Sunday. Either it was the series, and a coaching group that had just gone 3-1 paid up on a wager about beating the All Blacks. Or it was the number in the captain’s caption, and the staff were marking the boss’s 100th Test, with Human first in the chair. One of those is about New Zealand. The other is about Erasmus. Which was it? Settle it below.
Frequently asked
Why did Rassie Erasmus shave his head?
He lost a bet. Erasmus posted a photo on Sunday 13 September with scrum coach Daan Human, both shaved, captioned “The prize of a bet”, and has not said what the bet was. A second post showed the whole Springboks management group shaved, captioned “Reels is Reels”, and Siya Kolisi’s post tied the day to Erasmus’s 100th Test in charge.
Who is Daan Human?
The Springboks scrum coach for the past six years. A prop with four Springboks caps who played 169 games for Toulouse and won two Heineken Cups there, then coached the Cheetahs and Bulls scrums before South Africa’s. He farms, and told the media before the third Test that a farmer cannot cheat.
What do chiskop and bleskop mean?
Both are South African words for a shaved or bald head. Chiskop is township slang, with kop the Afrikaans for head. Bleskop is Afrikaans, from bles, meaning bald, and kop, and is the hashtag Kolisi used.
