Pumas jinx bothers Boks
RASSIE: IT’S TIME TO STAND UP AND FIGHT TOUGH CONDITIONS IN ARGENTINA
Marx working hard to fix line-out woes that haunted Boks in Durban.
It’s high time the Springboks get the “monkey off their backs” by struggling when they go over to face Argentina in their hostile home conditions. Targeting back-to-back wins in the Rugby Championship tonight in Mendoza, coach Rassie Erasmus said there are several contributing factors why it’s become such an annual struggle in South America.
“For me it’s a new one as coach. I obviously played there a few times, but I guess it’s the travelling and a hostile atmosphere,” he said.
“You get intimidated and sometimes those 50/50 calls go against you, the crowds, the training field, you start feeling it’s all against you. So there’s so many things that take you out of your comfort zone.
“And it is concerning for our Super Rugby franchises to lose here, but it’s a monkey we must get off our backs,” he said.
Erasmus added that hooker Malcolm Marx has taken ownership for the Boks losing five lineouts last weekend in Durban.
“Malcolm will be the first to put up his hand and take the blame on himself. There was one where there was a contest but the others were simply overthrows.
“Malcolm already accepted that and is working really hard, but the combination between Malcolm and Franco (Mostert) has been there for years.”
Erasmus said Pieter-Steph du Toit – who made way for Mostert – was not moved to the bench because he had a bad game.
“In fact he had an awesome game and was one of our better players, but we had to bring Franco back and we also wanted our loosetrio combination to settle for a few games.”
The Springbok coach said they used reserve prop Wilco Louw quite a lot in June and when Frans Malherbe came back he jumped the queue.
“So we thought to bring him back now after training six, seven weeks with us and he almost fell out of Super Rugby after injury but he is really looking sharp and fit.
“With all the travel we thought it would be great to have a fresh tighthead to bring him on.”
Erasmus also revealed that if flank Cyle Brink didn’t get injured he would have toured instead of Marco van Staden.
“The idea was to keep Francois (Louw) in the mix and let Marco and the guys feed off him and we actually would have left Marco at home and bring Cyle with to give him a run off the bench, because the plan was to have Flo only for a few games in the Championship,” he said. Kickoff: 9.10pm (SA time) Also see Page 43