Rassie rues Bok mistakes

The heat on the team and himself will only increase before their date with the mighty All Blacks in Wellington this weekend, Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus (below) admitted after the 23-18 Rugby Championship defeat to Australia in Brisbane at the weekend.

It was the Boks’ third loss from their last four Test matches and Erasmus’ fourth defeat in seven starts. They were also handed back-to-back losses in the Championship.

“We are playing the best team in the world and we’ve just lost two matches in a row, so the pressure is on us,” Erasmus said.

There had been question marks hanging over Erasmus’ approach in trying to focus on the World Cup instead of immediate results, while the captaincy of Siya Kolisi and the rapid changes to the starting line-up had also been placed under the radar.

After taking an early lead of 15-7, the Boks seemed to lose their way, and after leading 18-17 at half-time they failed to add a single point in the second period.

“We were awful in the second half and played better in the opening half,” Erasmus said.

The Boks could have swung the result but a try by replacement flank Francois Louw in the dying minutes was disallowed because of an earlier knock-on.

The damage, however, was done much earlier.

The second Wallaby try by centre Matt Toomua resulted after a poor lineout overthrow but Erasmus said it was not the reason hooker Bongi Mbonambi was almost immediately substituted by Malcolm Marx.

“The arrangement is that as soon as a player has emptied his tank the replacement must go on. It wasn’t because of the throw.”

Erasmus felt their mauling went well in comparison to their last Test.

“The scrums were good in the first half, but then there were moments when we lost vital scrums and lineouts, so it was a mixed bag of different mistakes.”

See ratings on Page 30