By Ian Cameron of RugbyPass.com
Former Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus has released another one of his Rugby World Cup team talks, in which he admitted that he had been 'an ****hole' in his playing days.
Erasmus shared the video on his Twitter account and it's gone down well in rugby circles.
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Erasmus, who has been linked with succeeding Eddie Jones for the England job, gave the speech during Rugby World Cup in Japan.
"Some guys understand – 'shit, I must keep on sacrificing' – these are the guys, those that we say are has-beens, because they don't play a lot of rugby long, those entitled ones.
"This is that ownership part. You take ownership of this whole thing. S***, I'm always going to sacrifice. I'm honoured, I'm desperate, I get the reward, but s***, I'm taking ownership of this thing.
"I went through two years, and I said it to the Stormers last year, when nobody told me, 'you're being an absolute d***'. I was player of the year, good contract, great money. I was starting every Test match, we were winning 17 Test matches in a row; but a guy called Harry Viljoen, who was a businessman who didn't follow rugby.
"He eventually came in and had to just drop me. Then my buddies started telling. I was like 'why is that guy dropping me? [and they said], 'because you're an ****hole.'
"Because you're so entitled Rassie. You're a little bit of a virus in the team. You're getting everything but you're moaning about training sessions'. I was such a bad person that my wife also told me that.
"So if you don't take ownership yourself about this…this ownership is also about the team.
"If you don't have the balls to tell one of your teammates 'hey, you're being a d***, you're being an arsehole' in this entitled mode, then you're also still not taking ownership.
"Boys, this is something that I'm going to show you later, this is a big part of our team selection. You can be the most brilliant rugby player, but if you're this entitled person, and I'm not saying that there's a s***load of you sitting here, then you're going to go through that."
This article first appeared on RugbyPass.com and has been republished with permission