“It works both ways. He’s going to make mistakes, we’re going to make mistakes. The frustration we had in the past, and the lack of communication because of various things with Covid … that is in the past. There’s a nice protocol in place, it’s easy to communicate with them.”
Erasmus refused to comment directly on Dupoint’s opinion that O’Keeffe was not up to the challenge of the match in front of him. He wants there to be respect both to and from the officials.
He added: “I wouldn’t like to comment on what they (France) said about the referee. We are just working on accepting that there will be mistakes on both sides, which is something that we had to get right and we had to earn the respect back and I think it’s slowly happening.”
South Africa proved at the Stade de France that their opponents still have plenty to learn on the pitch. But their behaviour off it is also now a marker of where the aspiring champions need to be.
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