Building squad depth hampered the Springboks in their quest to deliver a perfect game and attain the level of consistency they always craved to achieve, coach Rassie Erasmus says.
Reflecting on his team's successful Rugby Championship campaign, Erasmus said the Boks had performed better overall than New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.
After their win over Argentina at Twickenham, the Boks are enjoying a short break before their end-of-season European tour, where they will face Japan (at Wembley Stadium in London), France, Italy, Ireland and Wales.
“Obviously, we are trying to find the perfect game and I don’t think anybody did it in the Rugby Championship,” Erasmus said.
“Yes, it’s a problem that we have, but I think most teams have that. One of our goals was to stay in the present, do well and not just focus on World Cups like a lot of people want us to do, though we understand why they say that.
“We believe that when we give different combinations a chance, different guys under pressure a chance, you will have a little bit of a lack of rhythm.
“There were patches where we were brilliant in our last game against Argentina and then two tries were handed to them — they didn’t have to do a lot there. Those moments we must cut out.
“In the Rugby Championship, I think we did better than the other three teams in the competition.”
Erasmus highlighted the depth the Boks have at their disposal with the 2027 World Cup in Australia on the horizon.
“We’ve used close to 47 players and we gave a lot of guys chances. I would love to give Faf de Klerk more chances, would love to give Franco Mostert more chances,” he said.
“Handré Pollard played close to the same [number of] minutes as the other flyhalves. I thought Boan Venter and Marnus van der Merwe played well when they had the opportunities, as well as Lood de Jager when he had his chance.
“We must be honest with ourselves. Ntuthuko Mchunu’s not here, Gerhard Steenekamp’s not here, Salmaan Moerat’s not here, Cameron Hanekom’s not here, Evan Roos is not here, Elrigh Louw is not here, and I could go on.
“Edwill van der Merwe is not here, Kurt-Lee Arendse is not here, Aphelele Fassi is not here, so we also had to dig deep, and guys who we thought would play a lot for us are injured or didn’t get enough game time.
“If we played the same team the whole year, the consistency might have been better and we might have had longer spells in games where it went well.
‘Taking a risk’
“A lot of that is taking a risk. We all remember when we went down in Auckland. We were basically third in the table and we had to go and beat New Zealand in Wellington with five points.
“And then we had to go and beat Argentina in SA with five points and then we had our last game.
“I think the character was OK, but tactically there are a lot of things to fix. Definitely trying to build squad depth played a role in the lack of continuity.”
Erasmus is expected to announce his squad for the November tour in the next two weeks before the squad reassembles later in October.
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