Rassie Erasmus does not dispute that World Rugby is winning its argument. He disputes that winning it makes rugby better.
Speaking after naming his Springboks side for Saturday's Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires, the world champions' coach was asked about the governing body's push to speed the game up and lift scoring — a project that has included depowering the scrum, a traditional South African weapon.
"There's a big drive from a lot of people to say attack is the beautiful part of the game, [but] we like to think defence is, we like to think scrums are, we think the kicking game is, we think sidesteps are, we think passing is — we like to think all parts of the game are and that's what makes our game special," Erasmus said.
He conceded the strategy is landing. "World Rugby is definitely driving and supporting the attacking side of the game a hell of a lot. If that's their main goal, they're succeeding because there are lots of big scores, probably for both teams combined 60 or 70 points."
Then the counter-argument: "If that's the spectacle, but for us a spectacle is sometimes just a really tense Test match where it's one or two points."
Erasmus also suspects the pendulum swings back when a trophy is on the line. With the 2027 World Cup in Australia a little over a year away and South Africa chasing an unprecedented third straight title, he expects the knockout rounds to look nothing like the current Test diet.
"The nerves in the pool games are not so much… [but] I've always found that if you go through the round-of-16, quarter-final, semi-final, final, it becomes more of a defensive thing because of the pressure and the stakes are really high," he said. "I guess in the pool games, attack will probably be pretty important but, for the teams that go further, I think defence will be pretty important."
He is not the only prominent voice pushing back. Super Rugby Pacific introduced five law trials for the 2026 season, including free-kicks instead of scrums for accidental offside and for delayed ball at the ruck. Reports from World Rugby's Shape of the Game conference described two camps: France and South Africa defending the set-piece, Australia and New Zealand pressing for continuity.
Eddie Jones — now Japan's head coach, and preparing to face the Wallabies in Osaka this weekend — sided firmly with the first group.
"I don't think it's a north-south thing. That's like the old communist, capitalist type breakdown. Countries have always got self-interest — you go to these meetings, it's self-interest," Jones said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
"The scrum is such an important part of rugby and it's one of the differentiations of the game. We shouldn't go anywhere to depower, I think we need to try to get it to be set quicker and I think it's possible."
His objection to the Super Rugby trials was more specific: "I don't like it, I think the scrum's there for a restart and we should keep it as a restart to the game. The more you go to free-kicks, the more chance we've got for a lot of kicking."
Jones framed it as an argument about who gets to play the sport at all.
"The charter of the game is to be a game for all shapes and sizes. Whether that's still important is for other people to decide," he said. "If you depower the scrum then just have a look at the consequence of what happened in rugby league. It will change the players you pick — why would you pick props? Do we want a game where everyone's the same size and shape?"
"The intrinsic beauty about our game is that balance between contest and continuity. It's always a battle to get it right and it's never perfect. We know the game's never perfect but we don't want a perfect game."
Two former Test referees have raised a more practical objection: that the trials may not even achieve what they set out to. Jaco Peyper, now a law adviser inside the Springbok setup, argued on the Rassie+ podcast that handing free-kicks to the side without the ball adds delay rather than removing it.
"With a free-kick replacing accidental offsides, if you don't use the ball within five seconds at the caterpillar ruck or the box-kick, give a free-kick and take the scrum away, in my experience in refereeing, if you give a free-kick to the team that's not in possession, it slows down the game because there needs to be a transfer between this team and that team," Peyper said.
"That means that they're not going to have the quick tap option, they're probably going to wait to organise their team and kick an up and under. So, there are a lot of people calling for less kicks. With this, we are most likely going to add kicks, unless the free kick is given to the team that has possession."
Mathieu Raynal, head of refereeing high performance at the French Rugby Federation, put the northern objection in commercial terms.
"They want more passing, more tries, less time spent in mauls and scrums, whereas we defend these specific elements and are against directions being set by the southern hemisphere," Raynal told Sud Radio. "Our [Top 14] championship works. Our stadiums are full, rugby is more watched than football in the country. We don't want to follow directions coming from countries where stadiums are empty, where they are trying to recreate spectacle at any cost, even if it means sacrificing fairness and the principle of player safety."
South Africa remain the world's number one side despite the rule drift, and have broadened their attacking game since 2023. Erasmus's point is not that the Springboks cannot adapt. It is that adaptation should not cost the game its variety — and that in twelve months' time, when the stakes peak, the sport may quietly revert to the qualities being legislated against.
