Springboks debutants give Rassie Erasmus ‘interesting’ calls to make for Rugby Championship opener
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus was impressed with his debutants.
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus admits he has some “interesting” selection calls to make after watching four of his seven debutants score against Portugal.
While he bemoaned his team’s ill-discipline – South Africa received a red card and two yellows in the match – Erasmus did find positives in Saturday’s 64-21 victory.
Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Phepsi Buthelezi, Quan Horn and Andre-Hugo Venter all crossed on debut while Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu once again shone off the bench.
Early red card
Those tries and the ones that followed came after Andre Esterhuizen had his early yellow card upgraded to red. Kurt-Lee Arendse and Horn were later sin-binned.
“I was happy with everything other than discipline – a red card and two yellows is not going to win you World Cups,” Erasmus said following their Bloemfontein win.
“We had to make plans on the field to play with 14 – that’s a nice experience.
“It wasn’t a beautiful match at times, and it didn’t look like we were going to punish them with 50 points, but the crowd never got negative, and I think that helped the players.
“Having seven debutants play with four of them scoring tries makes things interesting when it comes to selecting the squad for the Castle Lager Rugby Championship and the trip to Australia.”
Erasmus is set to announce his tour squad that will head to Australia on Tuesday and stressed that those who featured against Portugal had put their hands up.
“I promised the whole squad that everyone would get a game today and at least 20 minutes on the field,” said the Springboks head coach. “The way they rewarded us for giving them that chance was really unbelievable. I’m very proud of them.
“We will definitely be slowly integrating some of these players into the squad – some might play against Australia – but then not play against New Zealand – but then come back against Argentina.”
Discussing the fact he named seven debutants in his matchday squad to face Os Lobos, Erasmus was quick to rubbish claims he had picked a ‘B’ team this weekend.
“Portugal are a Tier Two nation, but this team we picked today would give the team we picked against Ireland a real go. I’m telling you, that there’s no difference between the teams,” he said.
“The Portuguese put in a lot of effort and at half-time we weren’t comfortable, and we knew we still had to put in a lot of effort. They hung in there and if you put aside the scoreline, they really tried so we’re just happy to have got the win.”
