Rassie: 'I must admit I'm waking up thinking, shouldn't we be going 7/1?'

Rassie Erasmus admits he’s been second-guessing his selections for the Springboks’ heavyweight showdown with Ireland this weekend, wondering whether he should have added extra ammunition to the bomb squad for the Test.

The coach selected five specialist forwards on the bench for the Dublin showdown, but with bulking hybrid Andre Esterhuizen in the No.21 jersey, giving the benefit of both a 5/3 and a 6/2 bench split.

But Eramsus says he woke up on Thursday morning with a feeling he may have been better selecting seven forwards and just one back on the bench. That decision was influenced by the independent judiciary process involving Franco Mostert following his red card against Italy last week.

“This morning, I must admit I’m waking up and thinking, ‘shouldn’t we be going 7/1?’,” the coach revealed when naming the team on Thursday.

“With Tuesday night Franco’s thing, and last night, Lood’s thing, it buggered up the training sessions and stuff if you bracket this guy with this guy with this guy.

“There are a few guys with niggles, and obviously I don’t want to say now, exactly who, because we’re going into our 14th match of this season. But I’m just glad that if one of our guys does go down in one of the training sessions that are left, we were pretty thin at lock.

“But then even this morning, chatting to the other coaches and saying, ‘Maybe this is a game to go 7/1’. I’m not quite sure what Ireland will go with.

“But we’re confident in the protocols and the process that has followed and were followed. I sat in and listened to most of those things, and I totally understand how they got to Franco and to Lood’s end result. Somewhere, a mistake was made, but it can be rectified; fantastic, we all believe in the system.”

Head-to-Head

Last 5 Meetings

Wins

3

Draws

0

Wins

2

Average Points scored

18

20

First try wins

100%

Home team wins

40%

The other selection question to emerge from Thursday’s team naming also centred around the second row, where RG Snyman will bring up his 50th Test match, but do so off the bench.

Erasmus has a history of starting players in milestone Test matches, and admitted he expected to have to answer for the decision to keep Snyman in the impact unit this time around.

“I thought that question was going to come, and it’s a valid one,” he said. “It would have been lovely to let him start the match, and he also loves to start; he loves to play as long as he can. Most players do.

“He knows his role off the bench. We did have a quick chat, ‘Listen, it’s your 50th game, do you mind playing off the bench?’ He said, ‘No problem.’ He totally understands.

“With two of the other locks unavailable and one injured, you know he’s obviously going to be in the team, and that is first and foremost what he’s grateful for. I guess he’ll run out in front, and then he’ll go to the bench, which will feel a bit weird. But he’s not worried sacrificing that for the team.

“Yes, it would have been lovely to start him, but I think it’s best for the team for him to play off the bench.”

The coach also reacted to three of his players, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Malcolm Marx, and Ox Nche, earning nominations for the World Rugby Player of the Year. France speed demon Louis Bielle-Biarrey completes the list of 2025 nominees.

“We are happy for them. We tend to focus on the things that we can control, and that is probably mostly the scoreboard,” Erasmus said.

“Sometimes these awards get handed out, and you don’t quite understand how and how they get to it. But we are very proud of those guys. Even if they don’t get it, at least they were nominated.

“I guess the way we play on Saturday, we must try to support them and help them to get closer to that.

“We’re very thankful to whoever it is who nominated them, and hopefully the boys can make it.”