Erasmus must get marching orders

THANKS Rassie, now goodbye. That should be the message from Munster chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald to the departing Erasmus. He must leave immediately.

The agreement between the province and their Director of Rugby is that he stays until December. That way chaos lies.

It did Connacht no good last season to spend months working under a coach the players knew was leaving, and Munster have no obvious reason to repeat that mistake. If they persist with Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber, the defence coach who is also returning to South Africa, for the first four months of the new season it could undo the substantial good work the pair did last term.

Professional sport is a cold business, evidenced by Erasmus deciding to take a major job with the Springboks weeks after declaring his future was in Limerick. He is not discredited by that.

However, Munster need to reflect some of that ruthlessness themselves and release Erasmus (right) and Nienaber now, and have a new head coach in charge by August. It is a difficult timeline but Munster are a serious name and attractive still. They must resist the temptation to go Irish with a successor if that decision is based on cost. Names like Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara will appeal to romantics but their time is not yet arrived. Erasmus’ time is up.