\u201cWe made a bit of a study about the world rankings this year, and we really wanted to end in the top four teams; ending No.1 in fantastic,\u201d Erasmus explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe interesting thing now will be when the draw gets done, to see what the benefit was of being No.1, No.2 and No.3 in the world rankings. We\u2019re not quite sure. It looks like you can get Australia, in Australia, if you\u2019re No.1.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut our first goal was trying to be No.1 or No.2 in the world at the end of this year, and then build player depth and experience, and to evolve our game a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, there were backwards steps; the first game against Australia, and the first game against New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think Italy, for me, is a very underrated team. If I were to predict, I think Italy<\/a> will be there either No.2 or No.3 in the Six Nations. For me, that team is on the up from what we\u2019ve experienced of them.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, we didn\u2019t have an easy ride. Next year, we\u2019re coming back and playing Ireland<\/a> here, and playing France<\/a> here, and we\u2019ve got England, Scotland<\/a> and Wales<\/a> in South Africa. So, I think we\u2019ve learned a lot about ourselves, but our game can definitely improve a hell of a lot more in certain areas.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, I think goals achieved, but then again, we can throw everything away with a bad performance on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s Cardiff contest comes off the back of a wild 80 minutes against Ireland, one with little in the way of stady attacking flow but plenty of set-piece dominance.<\/p>\n While the Boks\u2019 forward pack is slightly depleted with a handful of their biggest and brightest returning to their respective clubs, the Springbok scrum is still expected to play a powerful role in the match. For Erasmus, though, the team cannot rely on it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tough to say \u2018listen, we\u2019re going to take them on with set piece dominance\u2019, sometimes in a game, you only get the first scrum in the 23rd minute, like the case was in the previous game that Wales played against the All Blacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can plan around trying to have scrum dominance, maybe you get a lineout here and there, but apart from that, if the game goes away from you and you don\u2019t get those physical battles, then you have to handle them in other areas.\u201d<\/p>\n Head-to-Head <\/p>\n Last 5 Meetings<\/p>\n Average Points scored<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Test will see Cobus Reinach<\/a> don the green and gold for the 50th time in a Test match, a special milestone for the two-time World Cup winner. The 35-year-old is the second Bok to reach the half-century this November, after RG Snyman<\/a> in Paris. As was the case for Snyman, Reinach has been named on the bench for the special occasion.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll never forget guys like Faf (de Klerk) and Jaden (Hendrikse). There are many guys who are not on the tour here who we think are in the mix for 2027, but Cobus has been unbelievable this year,\u201d Erasmus reflected.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is taking a role where he\u2019s helping the other nines, but I\u2019ve never seen him so involved with planning and tactics and those kinds of things. It\u2019s funny, you don\u2019t really know when a player is going to get to that, and he\u2019s really taking a senior role, helping Grant (Williams).<\/p>\n \u201cWe also understand, with his 50th match, having a 7\/1 bench split and Cobus covering wing as well, you don\u2019t want your nine to start, and then go from nine to wing. So, we\u2019ve got Kwagga (Smith) also covering for us in the backline, and then Ben-Jason (Dixon) also, if we do get three injuries in the backline, which is very possible in a game like this.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for (Cobus), getting his 50th, obviously he\u2019ll get to run out in front, but it was like RG last week, just accepting that, for the best of the team, a start is not the thing that will work out the best for us, with him covering a few positions in a 7\/1 split. He\u2019s a top man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rassie Erasmus says the Springboks have ticked all the right boxes in 2025, not taking any wins for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-158070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764338174_255_818.png.webp\"\/)
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