'I'm embarrassed' ... Rassie Erasmus left red-faced after Wallabies outclass Springboks

“I am embarrassed ...”

Those were the honest words from Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus after his team surrendered a 22-0 lead to lose 38-22 to the Wallabies at Ellis Park last night.

“This is one of the most embarrassing press conferences I have done in a while,” Erasmus said as the dew settled on the shock result. “Not just because we were awful, but they were very good.

“I don’t want to put out the old cliché of ‘credit to them', because they were good, but we made them better with our performance,” the coach said.

“To be 22-0 up and then slip away like that … It was similar to the first Test against Italy when we were 27-3 up and then let them back in. This is worrying!

“We can look for excuses, but the reality is that Australia gutsed it out. They had a big injury to their key forward Will Skelton, but it was us that slacked off and gave them soft tries.

“Overall, Australia was better than us in most departments,” Erasmus admitted. “We did not scrum them; they beat us in the lineouts; in the first 25 minutes, they were very good in the breakdowns — after that, Siya Kolisi got injured, and Marco van Staden had to go for an HIA. They took over at the breakdowns.”

The disconsolate Erasmus said that apart from the opening 20 minutes, his team was outplayed.

“I can sit here and say they beat us in most departments. As coaches, we got it terribly wrong, and we must look at ourselves before we point fingers at the players.

“We know that between now and next Saturday in the return match in Cape Town, we are going to take a lot of flak, but to be fair, we take the credit when we are doing well, and now we must take it when we are doing badly.

“That is the reality of rugby. We are feeling bad for our supporters and our players. What we produced today was disappointing, and we need a response.