Retired Ireland star Simon Zebo has named Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus as rugby’s greatest ever coach and reflected on what might have been had Joe Schmidt selected him more at full-back instead of Rob Kearney.

The 36-year-old hung up his boots at the end of the 2023/24 season, having returned to Munster following the three-year stint at Racing 92 that abruptly brought the curtain down on his international career with Ireland.

Zebo earned the last of his 35 Test caps in June 2017 but was frozen out of the selection by Schmidt ahead of that year’s November internationals as he had announced his intention to sign for the Top 14 club in summer 2018.

It’s an unwritten rule in Ireland that players who want to play for their country must be with a home-based club, but Zebo was elbowed aside before he left. Although there was hope that he could play his way back into contention when he re-joined Munster in 2021, Andy Farrell, Schmidt’s Test-level successor, didn’t pick him.

“I wish it was a bit different…”

What convinced Zebo to quit Ireland and have an experience in France was how he didn’t enjoy the no-switch-off atmosphere in camp with Schmidt at the helm. However, he has now suggested that even though the Erasmus he worked with at Munster was similarly intense with his coaching, the South African was able to work in a way that left the players feeling more valued.

Appearing on The Offload with Tommy Bowe and Donncha O’Callaghan to discuss his recently published autobiography, Zebo said about his Ireland experience under Schmidt: “That is a big shame and something I look back on without regret, but there is that kind of feeling that I wish it was a bit different.

“I wish it played out differently for me, but that’s the way the dice rolled. It wasn’t an enjoyable place for me to be… I know the bulk would agree with me, the vast majority. Like, I’m all for competitive atmospheres and a culture being super high performing, let’s win at all costs. That’s fine.

“It was just that there was no switch off. There was just every single thing you did, or I did, was scrutinised just too much. I suppose I thought I would be valued elsewhere a bit more, which was the case.

“But like, I’ve worked with the best coaches in the world, and in my opinion the greatest coach we’ve ever seen is Rassie Erasmus. I’ve been involved in his culture, his atmosphere on a day-to-day basis, where it would be more intense working with the coach on a daily basis than every couple of weeks.

“And I adored working with Rassie. That comes across in the book as well, how much love and respect I have for him. He wasn’t playing a wide-to-wide game plan that I could throw my arms up in the air. It was the culture that he brought, and it was that mindset of ‘we need to be the best’. Similar (to Schmidt), but it was just done in a different style where the players were more valued, or it wasn’t always s*** on you if you made a mistake.

“There was just a culture or an atmosphere that I felt more relaxed in and more at ease in. Yes, super high performing, but just a different coach and a different style of management and player management and atmosphere, everything.”

Zebo was commended, though, by Callaghan for the diplomatic way he handled in the book his situation with Schmidt, that he respected the New Zealander for being an “unbelievable coach” and “didn’t s*** on him” despite the opportunity to do so.

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Looking back on his truncated caps haul, Zebo expressed regret that he didn’t get to play at full-back more in a back-three with Bowe and Keith Earls as his wingers. The issue was Schmidt’s preference for Kearney as his Ireland full-back, and the coach also viewed Zebo more as a winger than an option at No.15.

Asked if he felt he should have been chosen more at full-back, Zebo said: “Yeah. That’s not taking anything away from Rob. Like, Rob had a fantastic career, and I really got on really well with Rob and I still do.

“We’re just different styles of player, and Joe preferred Rob’s style, which is fine, so the opportunities when they came my way, I would have been on the wing. I would have loved to have been playing more often at full-back where I’m the one passing the ball to Tommy and to Keith.

“Like, where you just have a bit more room for that creative spirit and your instinct to come through; I loved assisting players and wingers as much as I loved scoring tries. There had been a couple of games around 2015 where it’d been Keith, myself at full-back and Tommy on the wing and we were shredding teams.

“Like, teams wouldn’t want to kick to us. Counterattacking teams off the park and just such a threat. If it had been another coach who had preferred that style, a Rob (Penney) or a Rassie or, you know, a Declan Kidney, we would have gotten more time together as a bit more of a dangerous back three, but it didn’t play out.

“I didn’t get the opportunities at full-back I had wanted, even though my performances throughout my career, the bulk of them, would have been full-back and my best games were at full-back as well. Just different styles of coaches and two different player styles to select, and the coach went with the other, which is fine.”

Returning to his decision to join Racing and sacrificing more caps with Ireland than the 35 he finished with, Zebo insisted he was delighted he left and talked up the competitive merits of the Top 14.

“In 10 years, I could be sitting on a bar and the difference between me saying I have 35 caps or 55 caps, like who am I bragging about, look what I got, kids. I did something different and I had the best experience of my life, not just pub talk.

“That extra 10 or 15 or 20 caps would have been incredibly special, and I never would have left them if circumstances were different, but those circumstances allowed me to have the best years potentially in my career and something I will never forget in my whole life.

“That was the decision I had to make, and how happy was I over in Paris, the rugby we were playing? Like 10 of those caps could have been on the bench, five of them could have been starts, or 10 of them starts, 10 on the bench. Would I have enjoyed that as much as my three years (in France)? Obviously not.

“The whole package, the atmosphere, the club, the people in the club, the players you’re playing with, the Arena, playing in the Top 14 is by far the best league in the world. Like, you don’t understand how hard it is and how exciting it is to have Clermont away and then have Toulouse at home.

“Then you have to go to Bordeaux away and then you have Toulon at home, and you are just juggernaut after juggernaut. It is so exciting, the atmosphere at all the grounds; it’s just an incredible buzz. The Top 14 is super special.”