Rassie Erasmus: ‘When your mom sends you a message to say I still love you, things aren’t lekker’
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus and an inset of fly-half Manie Libbok.
It’s been a tough few days for the Springboks following their 38-22 defeat to Australia in Johannesburg, but at least Rassie Erasmus knows that his mom still loves him.
South Africa raced into a 22-0 lead, but the Wallabies hit back, scoring 38 unanswered points in a historic first victory at Ellis Park in the professional era.
In response to the defeat, Erasmus made 10 changes to his Springboks starting XV and explained that four players were set to feature in Cape Town next Saturday but missed out because of the Rugby Championship round one result.
Getting answers
The head coach said that the coaching staff and playing squad have come up with answers as to why they lost in the manner that they did last Saturday, having begun round two preparations in the Mother City.
“It’s been a while since we lost. It’s been a while since a game just ran away from us in seven minutes. It’s not a lekker feeling when that happens,” he said.
“But by the first session on Monday, the answers started coming, and then we did attack today [Tuesday], and the answers started coming.
“We were 22 points up, and we thought ‘this is easy and then you get a shock’ and you get two or three concussions and it’s not excuses but we did lose Siya [Kolisi], Marco [van Staden], Kurt-Lee [Arendse] and Edwill [van der Merwe] so everything almost got compounded and then all of a sudden we were 14 points down and they were just putting down the hammer.
“As we are going through the training sessions, we’re finding the solutions. And one thing was, maybe it came too easily in the beginning, and then it got bad. We couldn’t handle it.”
There was a massive backlash from the result on Saturday, so much so that Erasmus‘ mom urged him not to pay too much attention to the noise on social media.
“You know when your mom sends you a message to say, ‘My kid, I still love you’, things aren’t lekker,” he said with a laugh after naming his team on Tuesday.
Manie Libbok’s performances
One of the changes to the starting XV sees Handre Pollard replace Manie Libbok at fly-half, with the former backed to control proceedings in Cape Town.
This, after the Boks got ‘overexcited’ at Ellis Park when they raced into a 22-0 lead. Libbok has been criticised for his performance in Jo’burg, but Erasmus has defended the playmaker, who wasn’t given enough support by his teammates and the coaching staff.
“We all know that Handre is a guy who likes to control the game like a real Test match – a World Cup knockout game – we know he can bring that,” the head coach explained.
“Hopefully, as a team, we can support him in doing that. Manie copped a lot of blame for the way we played, but I don’t think the rest of the team, the centres, wings and forwards, even the coaches, could have helped him better there.
“But Handre is the oldest head among our 10s, so hopefully he brings what he always brings, and when Sacha [Feinberg-mngomezulu] gets his gap, he brings the excitement like he wants to bring. We know what we have in Handre, and hopefully he brings the same on Saturday.”
