Rassie Erasmus calls for ‘balance’ with ’embarrassed’ Springboks back ‘in agreement’ ahead of Wallabies rematch
Springboks players during a warm-up (front centre) with an inset of Rassie Erasmus (left)
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus has insisted his side have only got closer together after their dramatic defeat to Australia, citing their collective desire to ‘find the solution’.
At one point last Saturday, the reigning world champions led 22-0 against Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies, but an inspired run of 38 unanswered points saw the visitors claim a historic 38-22 win to condemn the Boks to their first Test defeat since last September.
That loss was later made worse as bitter rivals New Zealand leapfrogged them to the top of the Test world rankings, with Scott Robertson’s side claiming a 41-24 win over Argentina in their Rugby Championship opener.
‘Everyone wants to find the solution’
The defeat in itself was hard to take, given the Springboks were looking to clean sweep the Rugby Championship to clinch a second successive title, but the manner of it has left the Boks searching for answers heading into Test two in Cape Town.
“Everyone wants to find the solution,” said Erasmus. “Is it the last message in the change room? Is it when we were 22-0 up, ‘Let’s put them away’. Is it forgetting how desperate they are?”
“There are so many things that we can find wrong, but at the end of the day, we have to go look at this move, scrum and lineout. We always want to try and keep the traditional way we always play, with some other things we want to get right.
“I don’t think the meeting was bad in a tense way because we are all adults; sometimes we get upset with each other, but everybody is in agreement on what we have to do.”
“You must learn when you’re winning also. When we were winning, there were some games we just couldn’t get to the third and the fourth gear. It didn’t improve on Saturday.
“But it’s different when you lose and you come into a meeting and all the players sit there, now they listen. They always listen, but now it’s ‘Oh, we lost’ so it does create a different vibe totally.
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“Everybody’s embarrassed. Nobody’s feeling good about themselves, but that just creates more tightness in the group and makes you want to get it right.”
Balance?
Erasmus might be hinting at a return to more ‘traditional’ Springbok rugby, led by a powerful, abrasive pack, but that is a far cry from what they have been doing over the past year.
Tony Brown’s introduction as attack coach has seen a dramatic transformation in their game plan, and it had started paying dividends.
In July alone, South Africa scored an eye-watering 142 points (an average of 47 points per Test) across their three matches against Italy and Georgia, scoring 22 tries along the way for good measure. That trend seemed like it was continuing in the early stages against the Wallabies, too, with three tries in just 18 minutes.
But that attacking intent has seen them shift away from their traditional strengths, which came to the fore on Saturday as the Wallabies picked apart their lineout. Erasmus has called for his side to find a balance between the two distinct styles.
“If you play beautiful rugby and you lose, you lose, but if you play boring rugby and you win, people are happy,” said Erasmus. “We were totally on the wrong side of that balance on Saturday.
“That’s not because Tony coaches that way; it’s a trap that we also fell into against Italy in the first match when we were 25 points up. You tend to think things are now easy and there is so much space here, and then a proud country like Australia take their opportunities.”
