‘Tougher than England’: Rassie Erasmus verdict on beating Scotland with South Africa’s much changed side
Knives were out, says Springboks coach
Rassie Erasmus, the South Africa coach, defended his decision to pick a much-changed side against Scotland and felt vindicated by his side’s 42-28 victory in an enthralling match at Loftus Versfeld.
The result keeps the Springboks top of the table in the Nations Championship’s Southern Hemisphere conference after two rounds of fixtures in the new competition.
South Africa opened with a 45-21 win over England on the opening weekend and followed it up by defeating Scotland in Pretoria.
Erasmus made 10 changes for the Scotland game but the more inexperienced side rose to the occasion, outscoring the visitors by six tries to four. The World Cup-winning Boks coach admitted it was a gamble, particularly as he thought Scotland would pose more of a challenge than England. Erasmus said he had been impressed by the Scots’ 47-38 win in Argentina in round one.
He also said that the lessons learned from his team’s performance had made the changes worthwhile. “Sometimes we must put our personal goals to one side of how many games you’ve won in a row or even putting winning this championship on the line so that you can know who can do what,” he said.
‘I don’t want to upset the English...’
“If you don’t make those calls you would never know. When do you do it? Are you always going to do it when you play a team that’s not of this calibre – because I think they are a great team. That’s how you find out.
“It’s tense, there’s pressure, there’s a crowd who’ve bought tickets because they want to watch this game – they don’t even know the players so well because they’re not even settled Test match players!
“So, for those guys to feel the crowd going quiet when it’s not going so well. That’s the only way we can ever learn. I’m not saying this to make out performance sound better – and I don’t want to upset the English – but we thought they were going to be tougher than England.
“The way they smashed Argentina, the way they beat England, the way they beat France and were playing just four months ago in the Six Nations, we knew it was going to be a really tough game.”
South Africa moved into a 14-0 lead in the first half through tries from Embrose Papier and Evan Roos but Scotland levelled before the interval thanks to scores from Matt Fagerson and Kyle Rowe.
The visitors failed to take advantage of a yellow card for Boks replacement Ben-Jason Dixon early in the second half and South Africa scored three tries in 10 minutes through Elrigh Louw, Damian Willemse and Zach Porthen to take a commanding 35-14 lead.
12 guys with fewer than 10 caps each
Scotland again responded with a try double, through Josh Bayliss and Ben White, moving back to within seven points of the world champions before Jesse Kriel made sure with the Boks’ sixth try three minutes from time. All 10 scores were converted, with Handre Pollard (five) and Quan Horn (one) delivering for the hosts and Finn Russell (four) doing likewise for the Scots.
“We had 12 guys who each had less than 10 caps – half the team – so we knew cohesion was going to be a problem,” added Erasmus.
“That you could see in the defence when we made some subs at the end. We learned a lot about some players – not that they are not good enough – but that there’s a lot of work to be done.
“This is the test that some of the guys needed – not against a tier two nation; but against a tier one nation that’s a really class team.”
Crowd wasn’t happy
Erasmus admitted that it caused some grumbling among the home support but he believed the majority were behind his philosophy of trying to grow the squad’s depth.
“I don’t think the crowd was happy at the end, but I think South Africa understands what we tried to do in this game,” he said.
“In the past I felt if we made four changes people would ask ‘what are you doing?’ But I feel the interaction between us and the supporters – through the media – gives us a togetherness and people know what we are trying to do. I think that’s something that’s changed over the years.
“It’s the crowd believing in the team and the team believing in South Africa, because they could easily have gone against us with those easy tries we gave away, but there’s a few players who haven’t done it at this level.
“If we lose the knives will be out – but for me the most important thing is learning about the players. If we had lost this game, I think there would be some of the crowd who would understand what we tried to do – but luckily we won.”
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