Rassie Erasmus issues update on Salmaan Moerat's condition after imperfect Bok win

Rassie Erasmus has played down fears over Salmaan Moerat’s late withdrawal ahead of South Africa’s emphatic 66-7 Nations Championship win over Italy, revealing the Springbok skipper suffered back spasms before kick-off in Turin.

Moerat was originally named to start at Allianz Stadium, but was forced out of the matchday squad after experiencing discomfort in the warm-up, prompting a reshuffle that saw Lood de Jager promoted to the starting XV and Franco Mostert take a place on the bench.

“Salmaan had a little bit of a back spasm on Thursday, but we thought it would clear up,” Erasmus explained afterwards.

“He looked good at the captain’s practice, but unfortunately in the warm-up he got more back spasms, so hopefully it’s not too serious.

“He’s the only casualty we have from the game. I don’t think there are any other serious injuries.”

While the world champions ran in nine tries and led 45-0 at the break, Erasmus admitted the display was not without its flaws as attention now turns to looming clashes with France and Ireland.

“It’s almost impossible to put 80 minutes together at 100%,” he said.

“Obviously, we’re not happy with the second half. We scored 45 points in the first half, and the final score was 66, so we got another 21 points in the second half.

“Italy are a proud team, and despite being 45 points down, they started running the ball from everywhere, while we also made some changes that we wanted to see, and with that one loses a bit of rhythm.

“But when you win 66-7, I don’t think you can start nitpicking problems in the second half. It wasn’t perfect, but it was proper.”

Erasmus was quick to stress, however, that a repeat performance would not be enough against the Springboks’ next two opponents.

“That said, we have to play much better than this if we want to be competitive against France and Ireland.

“But it’s nice to know that after being a month away from one other, the boys got together and played like that.”

One area that particularly pleased the Bok boss was his side’s discipline.

“I think we only conceded one penalty in the first half, and about five penalties and five turnovers in the game, which is pretty disciplined, even though the second half was a little soft.”

Erasmus also credited the continuity within the squad for South Africa’s ability to keep producing polished performances despite personnel changes.

“The biggest thing is that we’ve been together for eight years now, and we’re slowly bringing in guys like Ethan (Hooker), ‘Krappie’ (Morne van den Berg), Sacha (Feinberg-Mngomezulu), Ruan (Nortje), Cameron (Hanekom), Jan-Hendrik (Wessels), and Thomas (du Toit) is now back with us too,” he said.

“So we’ve been able to bring people in here and there, and when you go to a game like this and pick a team that’s match fit and ready, and everybody is calm and understands the system because we’ve been coaching them for a while, it’s satisfying.”