UNREPENTANT ERASMUS BACKS HIS BORING BOKS

RASSIE ERASMUS yesterday laid out his blueprint for beating England in the World Cup final, saying the Springboks will not divert from the dull rugby that sank Wales. The South Africa head coach is not bothered by criticism that his side are boring. They kicked the ball 41 times in Sunday’s semi-final to shut the Welsh out. And even if he was concerned, Erasmus admits he cannot change their attritional game-plan in such a short time. South Africa’s wonder-wing, Cheslin Kolbe, is fit after missing the semi-final with an ankle injury, and his re-introduction is likely to be the only change to the squad for Saturday’s final. ‘It’ll probably be exactly the same 23, apart from Cheslin Kolbe probably coming in,’ he said of his selection. On the Springboks’ tactics, he added: ‘Yes we accept the criticism but we are also happy we are in a position to compete in a World Cup final, which is ultimately where we want to be. If one understands where we have come from — we have been No 6, 7 and 8 in the world — we have got certain challenges and one of them was to redeem ourselves and become a power again in world rugby and try to get to No 1 and 2. ‘By doing that, you have to have some building blocks in place and we have followed a certain route and play according to the stats and the way the game is being refereed currently and what gives you short-term good results on the scoreboard. ‘We certainly accept that there are some things in our game that we have to improve and we take it on the chin and we will keep on improving that. ‘But we have put ourselves in a position to win the World Cup. We’ve got 160 minutes to train and a six-day turnaround, so there’s not a lot we can change in those two training sessions. ‘We’ve played England four times in the last two years. The score is 2-2 and the last Test we played was a very close match at Twickenham (a 12-11 victory for Eddie Jones’ side).’