A dejected Rassie Erasmus admitted the Wallabies were better in all departments in their upset Rugby Championship win at Ellis Park.
A brutally honest Rassie Erasmus couldn’t hide his embarrassment after his double World Cup winning Springboks were completely outclassed by a fired up Wallabies in a 38-22 defeat in their Rugby Championship opener at Ellis Park on Saturday night.
The Boks started like they had a point to prove, rushing into a 22-0 lead after just 18 minutes, before falling away over the rest of the half, leading 22-5 at the break, and then producing an abject second half, that ended with the Aussies finishing with six unanswered tries and a big bonus point win.
It was a shocking team display, with a number of players producing solid efforts, but they couldn’t bring it together at all, while the famed Bok “bomb squad” failed to ignite, and instead contributed to a desperately poor final quarter that saw the visitors dot down three tries in 12 minutes to power away.
Speaking after the match a dejected Erasmus said the whole coaching staff took the blame, while he praised the brilliant performance from the Wallabies, in what was their first win at Ellis Park since 1963, and just second in 12 outings at the ground.
“This is one of the most embarrassing press conferences I have done in a while. 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,” said Erasmus.
“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.”
Big injury
Erasmus continued: “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.
“We did not scrum them, and they beat us in the lineouts. For the first 25 minutes we were good at the breakdown, but after Siya (Kolisi) got injured and Marco (van Staden) had to go for an HIA, they bullied us there too. We, as coaches, got it terribly wrong.
“It wasn’t just tactical, they also physically dominated us. The longer the game went on, the stronger they got. At altitude, that’s supposed to be us. It shows what (Wallabies coach) Joe (Schmidt) is building there.”
Erasmus added that it was also a major blow that they allowed the Wallabies to pick up a bonus point, for scoring three more tries than the Boks, while they picked up none, and that was compounded by the All Blacks’ bonus point 41-24 win over Argentina in Cordoba.
“The saddest thing is it’s five (log) points for them, and we didn’t even fight back to take the bonus point away. So we’re on zero, they’re on five. I can butter this up to sound cool and respectful, but we were just really dog sh*t on the day,” admitted Erasmus.
