Rassie Erasmus becomes the most capped head coach in Springbok history on Saturday, surpassing Jake White's record of 54 Tests when he sends out the team for the 55th time under his direct charge. White set the previous mark across his 2004–2007 tenure, which included the 2007 Rugby World Cup title.
Erasmus has accumulated the record across two head coaching spells — 2018-2019 and 2024 to the present — with his overall involvement as director of rugby during the intervening years meaning Saturday is the 94th Springbok match played under his guidance since rejoining SARU in 2018.
His win rate as head coach stands at 75.93% across those 54 matches to date, a 13.5-percentage-point improvement on the Springboks' historical winning record of 62.5% at the time he took charge. Since resuming the head coaching title, that figure has climbed further to 85.7% across 28 matches, with only four defeats.
SARU President Mark Alexander and CEO Rian Oberholzer both used the occasion to place Erasmus among the greatest national team coaches of any era. Oberholzer noted that when Erasmus first took the job the Springboks were ranked sixth in the world and coming off a series of record defeats, and that with largely the same playing group he has since delivered two World Cup titles.
Erasmus was also awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in Gold for his contribution to South African sport.
Erasmus himself declined to dwell on the milestone. "When players reach milestones we don't talk about it in the build-up to matches and the same applies this week," he said, with his focus already on what he described as a "very dangerous Scotland team."