Rassie Erasmus: Players and coaches let Manie Libbok down in Springboks' defeat to Wallabies

Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus refused to lay the blame squarely at the feet of Manie Libbok following their shock defeat against the Wallabies in their Rugby Championship opener.

The Springboks blew a 22-0 lead to go down 38-22 at Ellis Park. It was one of the worst capitulations in recent Bok memory, with the Wallabies capitalising on a host of second-half mistakes by the home side.

Flyhalf Libbok was instrumental in the Boks’ first-quarter onslaught, running the show with halfback partner Grant Williams as the team went 22-0 up after just 19 minutes of rugby. However, it all went pear-shaped after that.

The Boks were accused of overplaying and forcing the issue on attack. The disciplined Wallabies then picked them off with a solid defensive effort in the second half, before making numerous turnovers to hit the Boks with some calculated counter-attacking.

Libbok threw an intercept pass that led to a Wallabies try which ended up turning the game on its head, while some of his decision-making must also be questioned after the game started to get away from the Boks.

The maverick No 10 has since been dropped for Saturday’s second Test against the Wallabies, with Erasmus reverting back to Handré Pollard in the starting team and youngster Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu coming onto the bench.

Despite making the change at fly-half, Erasmus was adamant that the management team and the players on the field could have given Libbok a lot more support on the day.

The Springboks turned the ball over 17 times against the Wallabies, while they also lost a plethora of line-outs, which are often used as their biggest platform to attack from. These are the cold, hard facts to be considered when the blame game is played for the Ellis Park capitulation.

“Handré is a guy who likes to control the game, like a real Test match semi-final and final. Hopefully as a team we can support him doing that,” Erasmus said during Tuesday’s team announcement press conference.

“A lot of people point fingers at Manie, about how the game was played. I think the centres and the wings contributed to that. (Fullbacks) Damian Willemse and Aphelele Fassi, us as coaches, and the forwards could’ve helped Manie.

“Handré is obviously the oldest of our fly-halves and hopefully he brings what he always brings. When Sacha gets his chance, he can bring that Sacha excitement.”

To be fair, the Springboks made many forays into the Wallabies’ 22, but unfortunately, they fluffed their lines in the second half when there was a chance to put the Aussies away. The line-out and breakdown troubles didn’t help in this regard.

Many are suggesting that the Springboks should return to a more pragmatic approach for Saturday – especially because of the grim weather forecast – and for the rest of the Rugby Championship after attempting to play with more ambition.

However, Erasmus says they want to continue to evolve as a team and will not be straying from the path which started 18 months ago under attack coach Tony Brown.

“Australia are pretty much playing like we played in 2019 – defending, kicking and letting the other team play to pounce on their errors,” said Erasmus.

“But we don’t really believe that is the way we will win the next World Cup. We can't just throw everything out, because we have worked too hard over the last two or three years to get the stuff in place.

“We maybe just got over-excited and felt ‘this is working and now we must put our foot down on the pedal’. But we ran ourselves off our feet, and they were fresh, because I believe it’s a myth that defence tires you out. When you are defending, you don’t have to worry about the ball. So you can actually rest on defence.

“We were chasing our own tail a bit and they were really good. It’s just one loss – it’s very bad and not lekker – but we need to have clarity and we really planned well for this weekend.”