JOHANNESBURG. – Rassie Erasmus pointed to past setbacks after the Springboks All Blacks first Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry ended in a 33-16 defeat at Ellis Park, with the Boks conceding five tries to one.
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The Springbok coach said the performance needed to have “a lot of things put right” ahead of the second Test in Cape Town on Saturday.
Erasmus on the Springboks All Blacks first Test defeat
“We have been in many catastrophic situations in our lives,” said Erasmus.
“We lost the first Test against the British & Irish Lions [in 2021] and everyone said it was a catastrophe.
“We lost the first pool game against New Zealand in the World Cup [in 2019] and everyone said that was catastrophic, so we have been in a lot of catastrophic situations.
“We’re now in a position where if we want to win the series we have to win three games on the trot. So, without doubt, it puts them in a very good position which they thoroughly deserve.
“Now we have to go to Cape Town and try and win there. If we do, it’s all level, but we still have to win three matches in a row. I wouldn’t say it’s catastrophic because there is a way out, and that’s winning three matches on the trot.”
Where the Springboks All Blacks first Test was lost
Erasmus said the Springboks contributed to their own defeat through the number of errors they committed, induced by New Zealand’s excellence.
“We were thoroughly beaten by a team that is now No 1 in the world. It’ll be nice to go into the next game as the underdogs,” he joked.
“I think we were dominant in the scrums, but it doesn’t help you if you’re dominant in one or two parts of the game. The All Blacks were more dominant in most parts of the game.
“I’m not going to butter it up with that cliche and say we’re going to learn from this and get better. We didn’t need to learn from this. We knew what we had to do on the day and we didn’t do it.”
He picked out the 58th minute as a turning point, with the Boks trailing 19-16 and pressuring the All Blacks scrum before conceding a penalty on their own feed.
“Even if we had kicked over that scrum penalty and we won we still made a helluva lot of errors,” he said.
“But it wasn’t a wake-up call. There were just so many things that we did wrong and that New Zealand did right, so I’m not going to say we learnt a lot of things from this match.
“There would have been a lot of things we’d have to put right even if we had scratched through this match with a one point win.
“We didn’t play well. Against a class team like New Zealand, if you don’t convert, they give you a proper hiding.
“With hindsight, there were a lot of things we didn’t convert. I think there were two or three big moments when we let the game go away from us. Not because we wanted to or because we wanted to make those errors but because New Zealand forced those on to us by being really intense and sharp.”
What comes next in the series
The tour continues when the All Blacks take on the 10bet Lions in Johannesburg on Tuesday, the final match against a franchise team before the second Test in Cape Town on Saturday.
The Springboks must now win the remaining three Tests to take the four-Test series.
* Press release.
