Coach Rassie Erasmus says a frank half-time intervention was needed after the Springboks went flat in the second quarter of Saturday’s Nations Championship Test at Ellis Park. CLINTON VAN DER BERG reports.
The world champions dug deep into a script from last season to close out a bruising 45-21 win over England.
“We definitely saw flashbacks of last year,” Erasmus said, referring to the shock defeat by the Wallabies. “The chat was there at half-time: boys, we’ve been here, we know how it feels, and if we don’t rectify things in the second half, it’ll cost us.”
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He credited assistant coaches Tony Brown and Deon Davids for calling it correctly in the change room, adding that the squad “had to be really honest with one another”.
The Boks were forced into that resilience test the hard way, with Erasmus confirming Eben Etzebeth failed a head-injury assessment and Siya Kolisi was withdrawn late after straining a hamstring in training.
Those changes came on top of a squad already missing key personnel. By Erasmus’ count, eight locks were unavailable, including Franco Mostert, Salmaan Moerat, RG Snyman and Lood de Jager.
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Rather than lament the losses, Erasmus framed them as a forced audit of his squad’s depth.
“It takes a lot of courage to rotate players in and out, especially in a new competition,” he said. “We’ll have to make some big calls this year to be 100% sure about next year, that when we go into the World Cup, we’ve tested our depth. Today, circumstances took charge of that, and luckily it worked out the right way.”
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He noted the average age of his match-day squad dropped from 31 to 27 once the changes were forced through, with several players, including captain Pieter-Steph du Toit, shifted into the second row, earning valuable game time in unfamiliar roles.
Du Toit downplayed the added burden of adjusting position while captaining the side.
“I don’t see the captaincy as extra pressure; it’s an opportunity, and it suits me well,” he said, crediting the team’s structures for easing the transition.
“You can just plug into the system and know exactly where you need to be, even if you change positions. The system protects you.”
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Photo: @Springboks/X
The post Rassie: Boks had to be honest at half-time appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Coach Rassie Erasmus says a frank half-time intervention was needed after the Springboks went flat in the second quarter of Saturday’s Nations Championship Test at Ellis Park.
The post Rassie: Boks had to be honest at half-time appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
