Mike Greenaway
If the Springboks are to defend their World Cup crown in Australia in 2027, the sooner they establish winning momentum Down Under, the better.
That was the word from Rassie Erasmus at the team’s media conference in Johannesburg as they prepared for their departure yesterday. The coach said no excuses would be entertained as the Boks look to reverse their generally poor record away to the Wallabies in matches in Brisbane on August 10 and in Perth a week later.
“We are certainly well aware that every year we have some kind of excuse for playing badly in Australia and we are not a team that should be looking for excuses,” Erasmus said. “We tend to blame things like unfamiliar venues in Melbourne or Adelaide but that is not good enough.”
Between 1996 and 2020, South Africa’s top rugby players spent many weeks in Australia and New Zealand on Super Rugby and Tri-Nations tours every year and they got to know every ground from the Bruce Stadium on the outskirts of Canberra to the icy fields of Invercargill, near the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island.
But the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything. New Zealand Rugby’s decision to look after themselves and ostracise their South African friends saw a seismic change in the rugby landscape as South African rugby went north.
Erasmus knows the implications of this better than most because as a player he was a campaigner for the Cats in Super Rugby and now he coaches against the Antipodean nations in the Rugby Championship.
“Back in Super Rugby we played their guys week in, week out,” he said. “Now it almost feels like the Rugby Championship and our November tours to Europe have changed places in the sense that we know what to expect in Tests against Wales, Scotland and Ireland but we are getting increasingly unfamiliar with the Aussie and Kiwi players.
“It is becoming more difficult to analyse them because their players are new to us.”
But Erasmus still has some key intelligence under his sleeve in that he intimately knows the thinking of Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt, who has taken over from Eddie Jones.
In 2016 and 2017, Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber coached Munster and they reported to Ireland head coach Schmidt.
“I know Joe and his coaching methods,” Erasmus said. “I worked with him when I was at Munster. He is a very hard worker and he brings the best out of players.
“You always know that a team he coaches will be proper, they will be very well prepared and play with a lot of energy,” Erasmus predicted.
“These two games will be a big test for us because many of their players are new to us, but we have done our homework on tactically approaching the Wallabies.”
Erasmus took the opportunity to explain some of his selections in the 33-man touring squad. For example, he said he had excluded Stormers No 8 Evan Roos not so much because he doesn’t rate him but because he wants to give Bulls loose forward Elrigh Louw a chance to state his case.
“I think we have two full loose forward trios we can call on. Marco (van Staden) and Siya (Kolisi) can play six, Pieter-Steph (du Toit) and Ben-Jason (Dixon) can play seven and Kwagga (Smith) and Elrigh can play eight. Elrigh can also play seven.
“Certainly Evan is not out of the mix. Before the Portugal Test, we told the guys to go out and show what they can do.
“I told them they were the new dogs in the neighbourhood and maybe they should (stretch) their legs and make a mark. Some of them did just that,” he explained.
“Now we want to test Elrigh against the big nations. He has always been part of our plans but certainly took a dip in form. He will admit it himself. We know what Evan can do and he has not been thrown away ‒ we still have nine Test matches away this year.”