All Blacks greats: Rassie Erasmus’ ‘dogs–t’ summary is ‘quite light’ as Springboks ‘fell off cliff’
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and an inset of ex-All Blacks Justin Marshall.
All Blacks greats Justin Marshall, Jeff Wilson and Mils Muliaina have weighed in on the Springboks’ defeat to the Wallabies in round one of the Rugby Championship.
Rassie Erasmus’ charges raced into a 22-0 lead before collapsing and conceding 38 unanswered points, a resounding result as Australia clinched their first victory at Ellis Park in the professional era.
South Africa scored all their points in a dominant opening quarter of the match, but failed to replicate that form as the game progressed, with the Wallabies gaining the ascendancy and surging to victory.
Wallabies have made progress
Speaking on the Breakdown, former All Blacks winger Wilson hailed the performance of the Wallabies and their head coach Joe Schmidt while stating that the Boks ‘fell off a cliff’ in the second half.
“A massive congratulations to Joe Schmidt and his team,” he began.
“He tried to deflect after the game, saying it was all about the players, but they’ve made progress in the last 12 months. That’s what they’ve done.
“And all of a sudden, you get the sense that they settled on their side that’s best and fit and available, and yes, James O’Connor was a part of that through injury, but he was brave in some of his selections as well.
“And in the end, the Springboks fell off a cliff in the second half. They had opportunities early in the second half to put the game away, but they failed. Then this team that won the third Test against the Lions got the job done. It was impressive.”
Rassie is right
Bok boss Erasmus was ’embarrassed’ in the post-match press conference and spoke frankly by the performance of the double Rugby World Cup winners.
“I can try butter it up and bottle it up to sound cool and respectful, but we were really dogshit. The effort was maybe there, but the accuracy or precision wasn’t,” he stated.
Rassie Erasmus: ‘I’m embarrassed, we were dogs–t’
Former scrum-half Marshall believes that was an understatement of what the head coach would have said to his charges in the changing room.
“That’s probably quite light compared to what he would have said in the changing room,” he said.
“Look, he’s right in his summary. It was complimentary of Australia. It was the responsibility of the coaching group. But he did say tactically we didn’t really get it wrong, basically he was saying ‘They just looked more hungry than us now’.
“They were hungry in the first 20 minutes, the Springboks, to go up by 22 points ahead, but then Australia had everything to gain by just gritting their teeth and going, ‘We’re not letting this go, we’ll get in the fight’, and South Africa couldn’t respond.”
Will Skelton addresses Wallabies’ future as he braces for Springboks ‘punch in the face’
Significance of the Ellis Park result
Meanwhile, ex-full-back Muliaina feels that the significance of the result cannot be understated in the context of where it was played.
“I think you’ve got to realise how significant this one is; this is Ellis Park,” he explained.
“You have got to give the context of where it is; they’ve been spanked by this Springboks team time and time again. To go there and then go 22-nil down in less than 20 minutes, they didn’t panic, they stayed calm, and there was some steel.
“There was some steel about those guys across that Wallabies outfit. I look back at that second Test when they lost to the Lions, I’ve seen a Wallabies team hurt before, but not the way, and this is the benefit from it.
“They’ve come out, they’ve added a bit of steel, the big thing now is, can they produce the goods again? They’ve got a few injuries, but they should savour this moment because it is significant.”
READ MORE: James O’Connor: ‘I’m not going to lie, we got a bit lucky when the Springboks fumbled it’
