The Rassie Erasmus 'don't think they were brilliant' verdict on two Springboks

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus has said he gave Eben Etzebeth “as much chance as possible” to feature against England at Ellis Park on Saturday, before the 141-cap lock was forced to withdraw prior to the match.

Etzebeth, alongside captain Siya Kolisi, was removed from the Springboks’ starting line-up just hours before their 45-21 victory in Johannesburg, after the lock picked up a head injury earlier in the week and the flanker pulled his hamstring on Friday.

The one-cap Cameron Hanekom was promoted from the bench to start at flanker and the uncapped Paul de Villiers came into the starting XV on the other flank, with Pieter-Steph du Toit moving to the second-row, for the match, but Erasmus revealed that he was not interested in experimentation for the meeting with Steve Borthwick’s side, rather getting a win was the sole focus.

Despite a net loss of 243 caps with the changes, Erasmus said that Hanekom, who was winning his first cap since 2024, and the Stormers’ de Villiers “certainly weren’t out of class”.

With that said, he was loath to be too effusive in his praise for the pair, saying “I don’t think they were brilliant.”

“Those two players,” he said. “Obviously to get caps into guys, it’s a new competition this, bonus points do tell and I saw this morning when the other teams played, they are chasing it, New Zealand and Australia. So it probably wasn’t something we were planning to do, we were planning to just win this Test match because we think England are a class team.

“But then injuries happen, and for those boys to play at this intensity against a team like that with [Tom] Curry and [Henry] Pollock, they are a good team. They are on a losing streak now, but before that they had an 11 game winning streak, so they know how to win. For those boys, I don’t think they were brilliant, the guys who played there, but they certainly weren’t out of class at that level and that’s good.”

Loosehead prop Ox Nche joined South Africa’s growing injury list within the first quarter of the match, with Erasmus not sounding too positive after the match.

“Ox got a knee injury,” he said. “I think it’s pretty bad. We’ll have to do the scans and see what’s wrong, but we wouldn’t have taken him off, the game was not definitely in the bag.”