Erasmus explains another last-minute change to Springboks' front row

Rassie Erasmus made a late call to swap his starting and reserve front rows before confirming his teamsheet for the Springboks’ showdown against France in Paris on Friday night, citing indecision in his post-match explanation.

The late swap moved Gerhard Steenekamp, Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Thomas du Toit into the starting XV after the trio were initially named on the bench for the Test. That front row would ultimately be replaced before halftime by the men who were originally backed to start: Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw.

With the final scoreline of 21-19 favouring the French, it was clear the late switch didn’t have quite the intended effect for Erasmus, although the Springbok scrum did generate a succession of penalties for his team in the Test.

Erasmus simply put the late change down to indecision.

“We announced our team on Monday, but then we thought maybe we had to change something,” he said in the post-match press conference. “We waited until the captain’s run on Thursday to decide and even then, we were not sure if we should, but we decided shortly before the game, and it was mainly with testing that combination with the Rugby World Cup next year in mind.”

It’s not the first time Erasmus has flipped the script moments before kick-off, last doing so against the All Blacks in Cape Town. That time, his reasoning was due to the conditions, wanting to get his lighter front row involved in the game while conditions were dry.

The front row accounted for 10 of France’s 14 penalties conceded in the match, with reserve prop Regis Montagne guilty of giving away four penalties and ultimately paying the price for them by spending 10 minutes in the sin bin.

The Springboks scored two tries from lineout drives, one to Wessels and one to Marx, but ultimately couldn’t turn the set-piece pressure they generated into enough points to win.

“France played really well and we didn’t, so I can’t find a lot of excuses. They took their opportunities when they got them and we didn’t,” Erasmus added.

“It’s probably a cliché, but I definitely think we had enough opportunities and there were simple tries we could have scored with one last pass, and perhaps one or two wrong decisions, such as not kicking for the corner and rather expecting the referee to give four penalties in a row.

“In front of a crowd like this you might feel you have dominance, but it’s just human not to keep on penalising the home team if they’ve already got a card or two. But in the end, it comes down to the fact that they played well, and we didn’t.”