{"id":180370,"date":"2025-09-30T15:58:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180370\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T15:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:58:22","slug":"rassie-erasmus-wary-of-being-on-the-wrong-end-of-a-history-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180370\/","title":{"rendered":"Rassie Erasmus wary of being on the wrong end of a history lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus<\/a> insists there\u2019s no danger of any complacency as they go in pursuit of the win that will clinch back-to-back Rugby Championship<\/a> titles.<\/p>\n

South Africa<\/a> thrashed Argentina<\/a> 67-30 after a second-half surge in Durban last weekend and meet Los Pumas<\/a> again in a top-versus-bottom clash on neutral ground at Twickenham\u2019s Allianz Stadium in the final round of the competition on Saturday.<\/p>\n

However, Erasmus is taking nothing for granted, especially since there have been numerous examples in Test rugby recently of big point swings from one week to another, and he hasn\u2019t felt the need to keep his players\u2019 feet on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory has shown that when we lost 57-0 to New Zealand<\/a> in 2017, the next weekend there was just one point in it at Newlands (24-25).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how things can turn around. We lost to New Zealand by seven points in Auckland<\/a> and the next week, we gave 40 to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, it is not the players who are writing themselves up and who are making a fuss about themselves, it\u2019s other people, and it\u2019s great, we love the support and we appreciate the media and what they do.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the reality is we have to play against an Argentinian team that will be hurting. And we know when we have been hurting, we\u2019ll pitch up the next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I also feel having players like Eben, Siya, Pieter-Steph, Ox \u2026 I can name a lot of really experienced guys, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll fall into the trap of thinking (we\u2019re perfect) all of a sudden.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was far from a perfect game (last week), 60 minutes into the game, the game was actually in the balance,\u201d he added. \u201cThere were brilliant performances, but if we lose this game, it won\u2019t be because we think we are the business; of that I will make sure of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rugby Championship <\/p>\n

P<\/p>\n

W<\/p>\n

L<\/p>\n

D<\/p>\n

PF<\/p>\n

PA<\/p>\n

PD<\/p>\n

BP T<\/p>\n

BP-7<\/p>\n

BP<\/p>\n

Total<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"South <\/p>\n

5 <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

0 <\/p>\n

15 <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"New <\/p>\n

5 <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

0 <\/p>\n

14 <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"Australia\"\/ <\/p>\n

5 <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

0 <\/p>\n

11 <\/p>\n

4 <\/p>\n

\"Argentina\"\/ <\/p>\n

5 <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

0 <\/p>\n

9 <\/p>\n

Erasmus admits he would have liked to have rolled the dice a bit more in selection, rather than just making one change to his XV \u2013 Ox Nche<\/a> coming back into the side at loosehead, but circumstances dictated otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are feeling for a few guys who can\u2019t get an opportunity, just because it is really a bit of a short turnaround, and we had to get some clearance on a few injured players today, and we only really confirmed the team about an hour ago after the training session,\u201d (13:30 BST, Tuesday).<\/p>\n

Erasmus hasn\u2019t been afraid to mix things up over the course of the Championship, as he looks to spread game time around and evolve the squad in the build-up to the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n

None of the 36 players he has used this campaign have been on the pitch for the entire 400 minutes of the five rounds, while the Springboks\u2019 tries have been spread around.<\/p>\n

Looking at 2025 as a whole, it is impressive that 28 different Springbok players have crossed the whitewash. This compares to 19 different try-scorers for Australia<\/a> and New Zealand this year and 18 from Argentina.<\/p>\n

Using the midfield to highlight the point, Erasmus places a big emphasis on the interchangeability of combinations, while acknowledging it\u2019s still a work in progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, chopping and changing becomes normal and combinations start to click really fast, whether it is Damian (de Allende) and Canan (Moodie), Jesse (Kriel) and Canan, Gaza (Damian Willemse) and Canan. I think that if you keep doing it, at some point, it will become a little bit normal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess that\u2019s why we had some stop-start games where we didn\u2019t do so well for periods of time. But in total, I really think, except for the second half against Australia in the first game and the first half against New Zealand in Auckland, I thought we were always building and getting better in all departments and firing shots in all departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve lost two matches (in 2025) and after this one, we\u2019ve still got another five on a really tough tour. As long as we get better and we are firing shots and some of them hit the target, that\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting there, but we are still far off.\u201d<\/p>\n

A crowd of 70,000-plus is expected for Saturday\u2019s game. Tickets can be bought via Ticketmaster >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus insists there\u2019s no danger of any complacency as they go in pursuit of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-180370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}