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Rassie's secret formula
The Mercury
|November 13, 2025
AN AMUSING snippet comes this way. Rassie Erasmus, Springbok rugby coach, is working on a secret formula that will make it impossible for the Boks to be defeated.
That formula? Rassie will send out 14 players at the start of every match. This draws, of course, on that second half against France last weekend when Lood de Jager was red-carded early on, yet the Boks shrugged off a disastrous first half to run rings around the French - with only 14 men - and convincingly beat them.
Ha ha! Yes, very funny! Yet the buzz is that the world rugby authorities are looking very seriously at amending the red card provisions of the Rugby Code because they can be devastatingly unfair to the entire side affected.
How can an entire side be held responsible for a momentary (and not conclusively proven) misdemeanor by an individual - as in the case of Lood de Jager?
This story is from the November 13, 2025 edition of The Mercury.
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