Erasmus to rethinks Springbok selections after unconvincing win over Italy

The Springboks’ lacklustre performance in the first Test against Italy will have repercussions, with coach Rassie Erasmus stating that he will revisit his planned selection for this week’s second Test in Gqeberha.

The Boks went into the Pretoria season-opener with high expectations after a promising warm-up against the Barbarians, but their 42-24 win was flawed. The Italians had left a core of stars at home, yet troubled the Boks in the line-outs and breakdowns, and were arguably the better side in the second half.

Last week, Erasmus said he had internally informed the players which of them would feature at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday. But after several disappointing individual performances, the coach says he will revisit those plans.

“I guess it’s a positive that we scored six tries, but we’re frustrated,” the coach said.

“The buck stops with us coaches because we obviously did not prepare the guys well enough. I didn’t see this performance coming. It is fixable, but it’s definitely frustrating.”

“Internally, we’ve announced the 13 or 14 players that will definitely get a run next week, and that we’d build the bench or starting line-up around those guys,” he added.

“We won’t discard those players, but some of them might move to the bench. Some of the real standout players who featured today might start again.

“The make-up of the team may change to handle the physicality that Italy threw at us. You’d think a team that made 120 tackles in the first half would break in the second half, but they did the opposite.

“Italy are a fit and passionate side and we have to make sure that the team we put out for the second Test is not just one that can go 50 or 60 minutes — it must be a team that can go 80 minutes.”

The Boks started the game strongly and it seemed a question of time before the Italians would collapse. At half-time, the Boks would have spoken about opening the taps and putting the visitors away by a big margin. That appeared to be on the cards when they scored their fifth try early in the second half, only for Italy to rally and score three tries of their own.

“It was a very frustrating game,” said Erasmus.

“We knew they were stronger than the public perception, and they manned up in every department of the game. When we were 28-3 up and we scored a try that was disallowed for obstruction, I thought we might have them — but then we lost momentum.

“I don’t think we have too many excuses, and it certainly makes the selection for next week interesting — they could easily have come back into it at the end. The frustration was not only about our failure to dominate, but also that the game was stop-start, stop-start. It felt like we didn’t get any intensity in the second half.”

Erasmus said the selectors would have to do some hard thinking before naming the second Test team: “We have to pick nine guys to go with the others and we have to decide whether they start or come off the bench. Damian de Allende has a bit of a hamstring, but luckily, we don’t have any injuries — just a few bruised egos.”

There were 19 World Cup winners in the match-day 23 at Loftus Versfeld, and a further 15 players are in the greater squad that will travel to the Eastern Cape.

Among that number are players yet to feature this international season. Certain to have action in the second Test are the likes of Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Thomas du Toit, Lukhanyo Am, Evan Roos, Cobus Wiese and Canan Moodie.