Congratulations to Rassie Erasmus. His 100th Springbok Test finished the way you’d script it — a 43-28 win over the All Blacks in Baltimore, sealing the series 3-1.
Here is what he takes out of it:
- 100 Tests
- 74 wins
- 3 Rugby Championships
- 2 World Cups
- 74.0% win rate
That is not a head coach’s record alone. It is every Test since 2018 in which Erasmus has run the Springbok programme, whether he was the man on the touchline or the man running the whole show from the director’s box.
- Head coach, first stint — 2018 to 2019
- Director of Rugby, while Jacques Nienaber coached the team — 2020 to 2023, 39 Tests
- Head coach, second stint — 2024 to present
- Combined Tests as head coach across both stints — 61 after Baltimore
- Combined total, head coach and Director of Rugby together — 100 Tests after Baltimore
Seventy-four wins from a hundred Tests gives the 74.0%. The one blemish stays a draw, Wellington, 27 July 2019, 16-16 against the All Blacks, Herschel Jantjies scoring in the last minute and Handre Pollard converting it. Erasmus called it lucky in a big way.
The bookend on this one wrote itself:
- First Test in charge — 2 June 2018, RFK Stadium, Washington DC. An experimental Springbok side, 13 debutants, lost 22-20 to Wales
- 100th Test — 12 September 2026, M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore. Springboks 43, All Blacks 28
- Contract signed through the 2031 World Cup — also hosted in the USA
Erasmus himself put it simply afterward: “Obviously, the first time was awful. A couple of years later, we won against New Zealand. It makes up for that start.”
The series itself:
- Test 1, Ellis Park — All Blacks 33-16
- Test 2, Cape Town — Springboks 33-26
- Test 3, Soweto — Springboks 29-24
- Test 4, Baltimore — Springboks 43-28
- Final series score — 3-1 to South Africa
Baltimore also drew 68,173 fans, the largest attendance ever recorded for a rugby union match in the United States. First full-length series between these two nations in 30 years, first ever Springboks-All Blacks Test on American soil, and Erasmus closed it out on the same American soil where he took his first beating in the job — Washington DC then, Baltimore now.
Two separate records sit inside that number, and both are his:
- Jake White, the previous benchmark — 54 Tests as head coach, 36 wins, 66.7%
- Erasmus as head coach only — 61 Tests, passed White’s record in July 2026 against Scotland at Loftus Versfeld, his 55th in charge
- Erasmus across the whole programme, head coach and Director of Rugby combined — 100 Tests, 74 wins, 74.0%
The most Tests of any Springbok head coach in history. The best win rate of any Springbok coaching era. Both belong to the same man.
The number on the graphic is only the start of it. The Springboks are No.1 in the World Rugby rankings again after Baltimore, having lost the top spot following the Ellis Park defeat and won it back during the series.
- Longest unbroken run at the top under this era — 98 weeks, November 2019 to September 2021, a Springbok record (the All Blacks’ all-time mark is 509 straight weeks, 2009 to 2019)
- Win rate over the last three seasons alone — more than 85%, sharper than the 74% career mark
- Springbok win rate before Erasmus took over — 62.5%. Under him — 74%. An 11.5-point lift across more than a century of Test rugby
Nobody gets under his skin quite like New Zealand, and the head-to-head says he has the upper hand there too.
- 7 wins from the last 9 Tests against the All Blacks
- Longest winning streak over the All Blacks in the professional era — 4 straight, 2023-2024 (35-7 London, 12-11 Saint-Denis, 31-27 Johannesburg, 18-12 Cape Town), second only to 6 straight between 1937 and 1949
- This year’s results matched a rarity — no Springbok side had beaten the All Blacks three times in one calendar year since Peter de Villiers’ team in 2009
The touring record backs it up further — a clean sweep of Scotland, England and Wales on the 2024 end-of-year tour, finished 45-12 over Wales in Cardiff, the Boks’ first clean sweep since 2013, an 11-from-13 season at 84.6%, their best since 1998.
Before any of this, he was a Springbok himself.
- Johan “Rassie” Erasmus, born Despatch, 5 November 1972
- 36 Springbok Tests as a loose forward, 1997 to 2001, one as captain, part of the 1999 World Cup squad
- Coached Free State Cheetahs, Western Province, the Stormers, then Munster
- SA Rugby’s first Director of Rugby, appointed late 2017
- Named Springbok head coach 1 March 2018, after Allister Coetzee was sacked
And the trophy cabinet to go with it:
- Rugby World Cup winner — 2019 as head coach, 2023 as Director of Rugby
- British & Irish Lions series win — 2021
- Rugby Championship — 2019, 2024, 2025, the first back-to-back titles in the competition’s history
- World Rugby Coach of the Year — 2019
- National Order of Ikhamanga in Gold — May 2026
That 2019 Rugby Championship arrived in the same year as the World Cup — the first team in history to win both in the same season.
SA Rugby chief executive Rian Oberholzer has already called him the greatest coach to lead the Springboks. On this record, that is not a stretch. It is the plain reading of the numbers.
“A hundred Tests, a series won 3-1 over the All Blacks, three Rugby Championships and two World Cups in his back pocket, and he closes it out back on the same American soil where he took his first loss eight years ago — you couldn’t write it better. Rassie Erasmus is the greatest coach the Springboks have ever had, and I’d argue the best in the world, full stop!” – 🎙Jay
Rassie Erasmus, Springbok head coach:
“Obviously, the first time was awful. A couple of years later, we won against New Zealand. It makes up for that start.”
Eight years ago this man lost his first Test in charge in Washington. Last night he closed out his 100th in Baltimore with a series win, three Rugby Championships, two World Cups, the record for most Tests coached by any Springbok boss, and the best win rate of any Springbok era behind him.
That is not a good coaching career. That is the best there has ever been.
