Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has expressed concern about the team’s poor performance in Australia during previous tours.
The World Cup champions will face the Aussies in Brisbane and Perth on 10 and 17 August respectively, before returning to South Africa to play back-to-back matches against New Zealand.
The Boks have only won five games against the Wallabies in Australia since 1996 and Erasmus is hoping to change the poor record when the team jet off to Australia on Wednesday to kick-off their Castle Lager Rugby Championship during the two-Test tour matches.
“We are certainly well aware, every year there’s an excuse, whether it’s maybe the first time playing at a venue like Melbourne or whatever. We are a team that shouldn’t have excuses. What is a bit different is that in the past we would be in Super Rugby and play week-in, week-out against them. It almost feels like the Rugby Championship and end-of-year tour has swapped around now,” said Erasmus.
The coach said the team is flying out on Wednesday and hope to get enough time to rest and acclimatise.
“We trained yesterday (Monday) and will train today (Tuesday). We will get there on Thursday and have sessions on Friday and Saturday. Then we will try to get into a normal training week,” explained Erasmus.
The coach said they expect a tough encounter down under, as new Wallabies coach, Joe Schmidt, is trying to build the squad.
“There are lots of new names in their squad, who we haven’t played against in the last couple of years. It will be a big test for us. We’ve done our homework, but it will be tightly contested,” added the coach.
