The Springboks will hope to set the record straight in the second Rugby Championship Test on Saturday.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus says the team are slowly working out the answers about what went wrong against the Wallabies over the past weekend, and will be ready for the massive second Test at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
A shock 38-22 defeat at Ellis Park, which included them conceding 38 unanswered points, was something that had never been witnessed in the Erasmus era, since he took over the team in 2018.
At Tuesday’s team announcement the Bok coach said that they knew what had gone wrong, and were now hard at work getting the answers they needed to overturn the result this coming weekend and get back on track in the Rugby Championship.
“We know what we did wrong last weekend, but it’s easy knowing that. The difficult part is to fix it. If we had all the answers to why things went wrong, it would be fantastic. It’s been a while since we lost, and the game ran away from us in seven minutes,” explained Erasmus.
“It is not a lekker feeling when it happens. However, going through the first session on Monday, the answers started coming. They also came when we did the attack today (Tuesday).
“So as we go through the sessions, the answers are coming. Things came too easily (in the first quarter) at Ellis Park, and when it got bad, we could not handle it.”
The Boks, who went with an all out attacking gameplan in the first Test, look to be going back to a more reserved playstyle for the second Test, after naming a match 23 chock full of experience, along with a powerful “bomb squad” for the second half.
Players to miss out
But that has resulted in a few players who had been earmarked to play this weekend missing out.
“There were four guys who were in the team announced internally last week who unfortunately lost out because we lost momentum with that defeat and are now facing a must-win situation,” said Erasmus.
“Krappie (Morne van den Berg), Ethan (Hooker), Vincent (Koch) and one other player has missed out this week which is unfortunate but they all understand how it goes. If the team loses and there is a suggestion that momentum has been lost then the plan has to change.”
Erasmus, however, has full faith that the match 23 named will be able to do the job on Saturday, get them back to winning ways and firmly back into the Rugby Championship mix, ahead of a huge two game tour to New Zealand.
“Hopefully, it is all smiles on Saturday evening. I am one of the regular guys. When we win, I check social media, but when we lose, I don’t. It’s not nice when we are losing,” admitted Erasmus.
“This smile I have is sort of an embarrassed one. It’s tough, and we want to get things right. We wish we could’ve played on Wednesday already.”
