Boks coach unfazed

ERASMUS AVOIDS MUDSLINGING CONTEST WITH EDDIE JONES English coach said he ‘knows exactly’ how the Springboks are going to play.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus yesterday refused to get involved in a mudslinging contest with England counterpart Eddie Jones before Saturday’s first Test against England at Ellis Park.

The Boks arrived back yesterday afternoon in the wake of their 22-20 loss to Wales in Washington DC, having to respond to questions regarding Jones’ remarks.

Shortly after England’s arrival at the weekend, Jones said “he knows exactly how the Boks are going to play”.

“I really hope that we don’t get in the middle of side-tracks, our confidence took a knock last weekend, but on the other hand they conceded 60 points against the Barbarians so they probably have problems of their own,” said Erasmus.

The Boks coach added that the kicking game they used against Wales was necessitated by adverse weather conditions and shouldn’t be seen as the blueprint for their tactics going forward.

“He (Jones) can maybe look at our kicking game, but that’s not the way we are going to play. He also could probably look at video analysis of Munster games on the way our defence coach (Jacques Nienaber) operates,” he said.

Erasmus revealed that hooker Bismarck du Plessis will also probably not be in the mix for this weekend. “He only joins us on Wednesday from Toulon and to select him after just one training session will be unfair on some of the other players,” Erasmus said.

“A guy like Bongi (Mbonambi) is in good shape and his problem was an appendix and not a leg or knee injury. Then we might have to choose between Akker van der Merwe and Chiliboy Ralepelle.”

The coach indicated 15 of the 17 players who stayed behind in SA at the weekend will be in the mix for the first Test against England.

“Ideally for the second Test in Bloemfontein when we will cut the size of the squad to 31 or 32. Then we might consider most of the guys from the first two Tests of the year,” he said.

Despite their disappointing performance against Wales, it wasn’t all bad for Erasmus. He said he was pleasantly surprised how wing Makazole Mapimpi handled the high ball in wet conditions and how centre Andre Esterhuizen grabbed his opportunity.

“I was not really shocked by our performance, as I always knew it will take some time. I don’t want to use it as an excuse but I thought we struggled with cohesion with all the new combinations,” he said.