Daring Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus lifted the lid on his Pandora’s box of new tricks when the world champions conjured up a runaway 45-0 win over Italy in Gqeberha on Saturday.
Known for his out-of-the-box innovations, Erasmus added new ploys to his evolving playbook against a bamboozled Azzurri outfit in the second Test at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
The Boks surprised Italy in the opening seconds when they orchestrated a cheeky scrum penalty from a contrived kickoff, which they hoped would allow them to exert early dominance in the set pieces.
Instead of kicking the ball a mandatory 10m, Bok flyhalf Manie Libbok chipped the ball and André Esterhuizen caught it. Referee Andrew Brace awarded a scrum to Italy, for which the Boks had planned.
The first-minute ploy did not reap rewards because the Springboks had a free kick awarded against them for going early in the resulting scrum.
In another startling move, the Boks set up line-out mauls in open play in a move that took the capacity 45,000 crowd and the tourists by surprise.
The novelty kickoff move, however, did not go down well with Italian coach Gonzalo Quesada, who said the world champions had not really needed to use the shock tactic to beat his side.
“I was really surprised and I did not take it really well,” he said. “I don’t think they needed to do it because they can beat us without using these kinds of tactics. So I don’t have a clue [about it], and for these last couple of weeks we were extremely respectful and we came with a lot of humility to the land of the world champions.
“They are deserved world champions, and the land of rugby and a land where we get inspired. Not from today because I came here for the first time in 1994 with my club, and I love coming to SA because when you are a rugby fan it’s so nice to be here.
“I knew when SA prepared for this game they decided to dominate it and show they are the top-ranked team in the world.
“So I was surprised [by the kickoff] because I did not know if it was something we did or said that created that first move. But it is part of their story and it does not concern us to analyse it.”
Asked about the kickoff move, Erasmus said: “Manie just made a mistake at the kickoff. No, I’m just teasing. We wanted a scrum to get on to the game. The Boks found that last week Italy gave quick channel ones and the ball was out, and we wanted to get into the contest scrum quickly with that [kickoff ploy].
“There are lots of plans and things we do that do not work, which people do not know about. People only see the things that sometimes work. That was a typical example of a plan that did not work. SA wanted to get a scrum where we could lay down the standards.
“The previous game was a channel one in-and-out for them. We had a bit of a plan but then we got a free kick against us. So it was a good plan in theory, but a bad plan in practice.”
On the midfield line-outs, he said: “Many teams do different tactical moves. We did a maul in general play where it’s just not a guy on the ground but a guy we lifted.
“We saw it being done by a Paul Roos U14 team. You get all the benefits from what you get in the line-out if you support a guy in general play, so it worked twice for us. Obviously, now people will be alert to that. So it’s done now for a couple of games, and we are glad it worked.”
The Boks managed to blank Italy despite a setback after 22 minutes when No 8 Jasper Wiese was shown a red card by Brace for a headbutt on Italian loose-head Danilo Fischetti.
Scorers:
SA 45: Tries: Grant Williams, Edwill van der Merwe (2), Canan Moodie, Malcolm Marx, Makazole Mapimpi and Jan-Hendrik Wessels. Conversions: Manie Libbok (5).
Italy 0.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.