A fireside chat with Springbok boss Rassie Erasmus had a profound impact on Proteas coach Shukri Conrad.

During the Proteas’ Test series against Pakistan last season, Conrad got a knock on his hotel room door. But it wasn’t a management member or player. It was Erasmus – the Springbok coach, rugby maverick and double World Cup-winning mastermind.

What began as a casual visit turned into a two-and-a-half-hour masterclass of shared philosophy. The conversation, as Conrad describes it, was “like unlocking a door to a shared coaching soul”.

“There was no ego,” Conrad told SportsBoom.co.za. “Just two South African coaches around a fire talking about getting the best out of our players. Rassie said something that stuck with me: ‘Create your own reality.’ And I realised, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

“We didn’t talk tactics,” Shukri added with a laugh. “We talked belief. We talked about kids from Lansdowne [where Conrad grew up] or Zwide [Springbok captain Siya Kolisi’s home township] having something worth dreaming about.”

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Erasmus and Conrad draw uncanny parallels, with both backing black captains in Kolisi and Temba Bavuma respectively.

When Conrad handed the red-ball captaincy to Bavuma, it was no token handover.

“I didn’t want a black captain. I wanted this captain,” Conrad told SportsBoom.co.za. “Temba is calm, considered, unifying. He was what the team needed. His race was a fact, not the reason.

“You can play the most beautiful cover drive,” Conrad added, “but if you’ve got no fight in you, I don’t need you in my XI. Give me a warrior.”

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Photo: Grant Pitcher/Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images