Rassie Erasmus: Springboks can’t ‘brag’ about winning streak after ‘pipping’ All Blacks
Rassie Erasmus says there is nothing to brag about after beating the All Blacks for a fourth time in a row.
Rassie Erasmus says that the Springboks won’t ‘brag’ about their winning streak over the All Blacks and gives his reasoning for his side’s slow start.
South Africa edged close to winning the 2024 Rugby Championship by defeating the All Blacks 18-12 at Cape Town Stadium after defeating the same opposition at Ellis Park last week.
The back-to-back wins over New Zealand means that the Springboks have now won four straight games against the All Blacks – their longest winning streak over their rivals in the professional era.
‘Four wins in a row is nice’
However, Erasmus says that the team will not be getting ahead of themselves as the All Blacks still have a good record against the Springboks.
“For us, four wins in a row is nice to have but they have gone six against us before,” Erasmus said after the match.
“There is nothing for us to brag about because they have done worse to us including some 50-odd point wins.
“It feels good that we can pip a team like this, again like last week if they had won, no one could say they didn’t deserve it.”
The Bok boss added that it wasn’t the lure of extending the record against the All Blacks that inspired the team but rather getting their hands on the Freedom Cup for the first time since 2009.
That inspiration did hurt their performance according to Erasmus as he believes that the players were too emotional at the start of the match.
This led to a slow start and saw the All Blacks open a 3-9 lead heading into half-time.
“For us, it was really about winning the Freedom Cup. We talk a lot about what it means to represent South Africa and when you attach the Freedom Cup to that, it’s special. We wanted to win because the Freedom Cup is very important to us,” he said.
“I think the players were actually too emotional at the start of the game and afterwards we on it but not accurate and after half-time, we calmed down a little bit and were better.
“The Freedom Cup was the thing we wanted, the four wins against New Zealand not so much – they have so many records they can brag about, we won’t ponder on that too long.”
Still a great win
Still, he believed that it is a great win as South Africa continue to claim narrow wins.
“Because it’s the All Blacks it’s special, I think we are 20 wins out 23 games now and there have been some great wins and that Ireland game was decided by a drop goal and the game at the World Cup was a very last maul that we could have scored from,” he added.
“Then there were those knockout games that we won by one point so we are very realistic about where we are – a lot of games could have gone against us. We respect the All Blacks – it’s a great win because it’s a team we have a close relationship with and we have struggled a lot against them.”
READ MORE: Springboks claim epic double over All Blacks ending 15-year wait for Freedom Cup glory
