Pressure on Springboks after late Wales loss

Rassie Erasmus acknowledges South Africa are under pressure to deliver a result against England, having suffered a dramatic late defeat to Wales on Saturday.

Erasmus, in his first match at the helm, looked to be guiding a new-look Springboks side to victory after an impressive fightback at RFK Stadium, but Ryan Elias’ scrappy last-ditch try – scored after a series of errors – turned the game around.

With three home Tests against England up next, South Africa are looking to improve quickly.

“We will have to step up against England,” Erasmus said. “We know the pressure will be on us to win, just as they would also be under pressure to be successful following their recent results.”

There were 13 maiden Boks caps handed out by Erasmus in Washington DC, but he takes little comfort from the positives of such a frustrating loss.

He said: “The one positive for me is that there were quite a few new players who got caps today and now know what it’s like to play against a quality team like the Welsh.

“But it’s still a Test that we lost and that hurt.

Not the start the Boks would have wanted, but this young team can hold their heads high after a good fight back in the second half. A total of 13 players made their Test debuts for SA today, which bodes well for the future.

— Springboks (@Springboks) June 2, 2018

“It’s never nice when you play your first Test and you lose, and we didn’t want that result, but we wanted to get all of the uncapped players on the field and start building towards the future.

“However, we still lost and that almost nullified the fact that we capped a lot of new players.”