Hansen warns Erasmus that Springbok veterans may retire before 2027 Rugby World Cup

Steve Hansen has warned Rassie Erasmus that one or two of South Africa’s veteran Springboks — including Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Jesse Kriel, and Cheslin Kolbe — may decide to step away before the 2027 Rugby World Cup rather than endure another full four-year cycle.

Speaking on the Rugby Unity and For the Love of Rugby SA podcast collaboration, the former All Blacks head coach drew directly on his experience managing an ageing squad ahead of the 2019 World Cup, a tournament New Zealand ultimately failed to win after their 2015 triumph.

“We had a group of players heading into 2015 who were getting on the older side, and we had a discussion one by one with them about what they controlled,” Hansen said. “They were the only person who could tell you if they still had the desire, the genuine desire to do the work from Sunday to Friday — Saturday is always the fun time; that’s when everyone can all still be playing if we could do that.”

The Springboks carry significant experience from back-to-back World Cup victories in 2019 and 2023, but that same experience comes with accumulated mileage. Hansen acknowledged the difficulty of letting go of players of that calibre, while stressing that honest individual conversations are essential.

“The guys you’re talking about are generational players for South Africa, and they’re guys that you don’t want to let go because they bring so much with them,” he said. “However, if he [Erasmus] has the conversation, then there might be one or two that say, ‘Look, I just can’t do it anymore,’ and that’s fine — they’re putting the team first.”

Hansen was clear that any such departures should be handled with the respect those players have earned. “They’re brave enough to tell you. So you exit them out of the team in a way that they deserve to be exited out because they’re champion players. But if they still have that desire, they’ll front up, and they’ll play well.”

The 2027 Rugby World Cup is scheduled to be held in Australia, giving Erasmus roughly two years to assess which veterans can sustain the demands of another campaign at the highest level.