What Rassie Erasmus thought was 'pretty cool' about Boks win

Rassie Erasmus was in a quietly upbeat mood after watching his Springbok side dismantle Italy 45-0 in Gqeberha, admitting he was ‘fairly happy’ with the result.

The win marked the first time South Africa have kept a major rugby nation scoreless since blanking Scotland 28-0 at Murrayfield back in 2013.

Jasper Wiese’s red card for a headbutt meant the Boks played 58 minutes a man down. When Wilco Louw was also sin-binned for a dangerous tackle, they went down to 13.

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Still, Italy couldn’t register a single point.

“Last week we didn’t know a lot of the Italian players because we hadn’t played against a lot of them, so they were tough to analyse,” said Erasmus.

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“After one game the older guys could transfer a lot of knowledge to the younger guys who played this week, and they could also point out where we thought their weaknesses were.”

That knowledge transfer paid off. The Boks rattled in seven tries to none, making it 87-24 on aggregate over two Tests in the Incoming Series, with a 13-3 try count against a side that pushed Ireland close not long ago.

“But to keep them to nil with 13 players on the field was pretty cool,” Erasmus added. “In two games it’s 87-24 for us in this series and 13 tries to three and they were a team that pushed Ireland very close. So, we’re very happy.”

There were also glimpses of classic Bok mischief. One restart was deliberately kicked short to milk a scrum. Elsewhere, they ran a maul from open play by lifting a player lineout-style—straight out of the Paul Roos “B” team playbook, according to the head coach.

“We tried a few things and sometimes those things work and sometimes they don’t, and you have to take it on the chin if they don’t work,” said Erasmus. “We won’t be able to do them again for a few games as people have seen them now.”

Wiese’s red card saw Erasmus make a shift in the front row, with Thomas du Toit, playing out of position at loosehead, swapped early for Ox Nche to bring stability against the Italian eight.

“We had seven men against eight men in the scrum from there on and we felt that we needed a specialist loosehead while Thomas is more of a tighthead these days, so it was a tactical change,” said Erasmus.

Despite the reshuffle and numerical disadvantage, Erasmus was satisfied with the trajectory of the side heading into their final warm-up against Georgia.

“We are fairly happy,” he said. “The Barbarian game we didn’t concede a lot of points in a tough rainy game there – we got a 50 there, we got 42 last week and 45 here and only conceded 24 points against Italy and, overall, a lot of the guys got caps.”

“So, hopefully after the Georgia game a lot of the guys will have had two caps, and we will have won all four matches, and we can pick a nice settled, balanced team for the Castle Lager Rugby Championship.”