New Zealand’s head coach Steve Hansen has rebuked his counterpart Rassie Erasmus for attempting to influence the French referee Jérôme Garcès before Saturday’s pool game between the two southern hemisphere heavyweights. Erasmus has suggested the Test arena is now so competitive that the era of the All Blacks potentially benefitting from marginal refereeing decisions as the best side in the world should theoretically be over.

Having named a starting XV with Beauden Barrett at full-back, Richie Mo’unga at fly-half and the relatively inexperienced George Bridge and Sevu Reece on the wings, Hansen said Erasmus’s comments were out of order. “It’s pretty obvious what they’re trying to do,” said Hansen, who will be stepping down as All Blacks coach after the tournament. “Whilst I’ve got a lot of respect for South Africa and particularly Rassie, I don’t agree with what he’s doing. He’s trying to put pressure on referees externally and they’re under enough pressure already. They don’t need us coaches doing what he’s doing.

“It doesn’t matter who your ref is. As a coach or a team, you can always find things after the game that they didn’t deal with. You can get emotional about that and think that they’re picking on you and not on the opposition. We’ve done it ourselves. At the end of the day, referees try to do the best they can do. Yes, they don’t always get it right all the time and we’ve suffered from that just like other teams have. It’s a big game, we just need to let the ref get on with it and prepare for it himself.”

Hansen said he hoped Garcès would be strong enough to block out such comments. “All I can say is I’d hope so, yeah … they’re not stupid people.” He is keenly aware, however, that Garcès was the same official who recently sent off his lock forward Scott Barrett against Australia in Perth, a decision which helped to accelerate a heavy loss for the All Blacks.

In contrast to the settled Springbok side, Hansen also conceded he does not currently have an automatic first-choice XV. World Cup winners Sonny Bill Williams and Ben Smith can only make the bench but Hansen argues that retaining a World Cup is increasingly a collective squad effort these days. “It’s a marathon not a sprint and we want to have everyone available around the quarter-final stages,” he said, brushing aside the statistic that no world champion side has ever lost a pool fixture en route.

“History is only history until you change it. In 2011 France were one point from changing it. If South Africa or ourselves get beaten this weekend you’ve got a choice. You either roll over and say ‘We can’t win it now’ or you say ‘We’ve just got to win every game from here on in’. If you do that you win.”

This will be the 99th Test between the two nations, with New Zealand having claimed 58 wins to South Africa’s 36. The last meeting between the sides in Wellington in July, however, ended in a 16-16 draw and the Springboks won this year’s Rugby Championship title.