Rassie Erasmus randomly dropped a Six Nations prediction after naming his Springboks team to face Wales on Thursday.
The head coach isn’t one to give brief answers in press conferences, and often that results in him disclosing a random thought, and that was very much the case on Thursday afternoon in Cardiff.
Erasmus was asked a simple question by an Italian journalist, ‘What were your learnings from the year?’
And that resulted in the Bok coach making an unexpected Six Nations prediction involving Italy.
World Rugby rankings and Italy prediction
“We never look at world rankings [but this year was different] because it’s confusing if you don’t 100% understand it, and we made a bit of a study about it this year, and we really wanted to end in the top four teams. Well, ending number one is fantastic,” he began.
“It will be interesting when the draw gets done to see what the benefits of being number one, two and three in the world rankings for the World Cup. We were not quite sure. It looks like you can get Australia in Australia if you are number one.
“But I think our first goal was to be number one in the world at the end of this year or two. And then player depth, experience, and evolve our game a little bit. And certainly, there were backward steps in the first game against Australia and the first game against New Zealand.
“I do think Italy, not because you’re asking the question, I do think Italy for me is a very underrated team.
“If I can make a prediction, Italy will finish two or three in the Six Nations. For me, they are a team that is on the up from what we’ve experienced from them. So we didn’t have an easy ride, and next year we’re coming back again, playing Ireland here and playing France here and obviously England, Scotland and Wales in South Africa.
“I think we’ve learned a lot about ourselves, but our game can definitely improve a hell of a lot more in certain areas. But overall, I think goals achieved, but then again, we can throw everything away with a bad performance on Saturday.”
Essentially, Erasmus has predicted that the Azzurri, who South Africa faced off and beat on three occasions in 2025, will enjoy their best-ever performance in the Six Nations.
Italy have never finished higher than fifth-place in the final standings of the competition and they don’t really have the easiest of schedules in 2026.
They begin their campaign at home against Scotland before back-to-back away games against Ireland and France. The Azzurri then host England in Rome before completing their campaign in Cardiff against Wales.
Autumn Nations Team of the Series: No space for George Ford as Springboks DOMINATE across the board
Rugby World Cup draw
World Rugby have confirmed that the Men’s Rugby World Cup 2027 draw will be made at 20:00 AEDT (GMT+11) on Wednesday, 3 December.
Last weekend’s action confirmed the final bands for the draw, which are as follows:
Band 1: South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France, Argentina
Band 2: Australia, Fiji, Scotland, Italy, Wales, Japan
Band 3: Georgia, Spain, Uruguay, USA, Chile, Tonga
Band 4: Samoa, Portugal, Romania, Hong Kong China, Zimbabwe, Canada
READ MORE: When will the 2027 World Cup draw be made, and where can I watch it?