Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus was left fuming after the team’s 38-22 defeat against Australia in a Castle Lager Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Saturday evening.
This despite the Springboks commanding a 22-0 lead in less than 20 minutes of the match, to go on a break at 22-5.
But the Aussies launched a fightback after halftime, to win the match at the packed and disappointed Ellis Park stadium in more than half a century.
Erasmus said the team has itself to blame, after it scored three unanswered tries in a fast space stanza, but allowed the Wallabies to come back, with a mounting penalty count and that saw them score six tries to clinch the match.
“We were really awful, and they were very good, but we made them better.
We can find excuses but they gutsed it out and, yes, we gave them one or two soft tries with an intercept here and a loose pass there, but overall, they were just better than us on the day.
They beat us in most departments.
We didn’t scrum them, they beat us in the lineouts, and they bullied us at the breakdown after Siya Kolisi went off and Marco van Staden had to go off for a head injury assessment,” said a disappointed Erasmus.
Erasmus blamed the devastating loss on several factors, including the Wallabies physical strength, missed chances and lack of discipline.
The coach also lambasted the team’s reckless performance at the breakdown, which led to four successive penalties against the team.
“From now until next Saturday, we’re going to take a lot of flak, but we take credit when we do well, and we have to take the flak when we do badly.
I’m saying it with a smile not because I’m happy but I’m saying it with a smile because that’s the reality of rugby and we’re really disappointed and we’re feeling bad for our players and we’re feeling bad for our supporters and for overall what we produced on the field,” explained Erasmus.
Furthermore, Erasmus said they might reconsider changes in the team picked to face Australia in the return match at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday.
“We have always said that if we don’t play well and we lose momentum, and we did both, we played badly and lost momentum, we might change our thinking.
We had a chat now in the change room and that may now change, but we want to get Ethan Hooker, Canan Moodie and Morne van den Berg and a few others at the start but we’ll have to rethink,” remarked Erasmus.
This was the first Wallabies victory after four successive defeats by the Boks at the same venue, and the heaviest defeat on the Springboks since Rassie Erasmus returned to lead the coaching team in 2018.
Kurt-Lee Arendse, Andre Esterhuizen, and Kolisi scored the Boks three tries, while Manie Libbok had two conversions and a penalty goal.
