Erasmus briefly interests ABs
Mindset is always a massive determinant in how South Africa play each week.
With the possible exception of France, decent teams rarely rely on emotion to make up for shortcomings the way the Springboks do. Which is surely what coach Rassie Erasmus has been up to in Wellington.
To start a test week against New Zealand as he did, in making the unprompted statement that his job was on the line, would strike some as unusual. For South Africa, it just seems a calculated attempt to summon a fury among players unable to match the All Blacks for skill.
Erasmus is seven games into a six-year contract and here he is, imploring the players to save him. We’ll see how they react on Saturday. In the meantime, he’s succeeded in briefly attracting the All Blacks’ attention.
‘‘Everyone – every coach, every management team – is trying to find the right way to approach a week and clearly it’s an approach they feel probably gets their boys in the right state of mind that the South African team needs to be in,’’ Foster said.
‘‘What we do know is I’ve never had an easy game against them. It’s never been anything but a hundred per cent physical and brutal and and [I] can’t see any different based on what we’ve heard.’’
South Africa have lost four of their seven games since Erasmus took charge although the first, against Wales in the United States, didn’t feature a fullstrength line-up. They then won the first two tests of their home series against England, before the recent 32-19 and 23-18 Rugby Championship defeats to Argentina and Australia.
Although, with all due respect to the Pumas and Wallabies, teams tend to lift when the opponent’s New Zealand.
‘‘We know they’re a very good team. We saw them play in June and beat a good England team 2-1 and so we know they can play and they’ve shown some good stuff in The Rugby Championship and they’ve had a couple of losses in an away game,’’ said Foster.
‘‘But we’ve got to prepare for a team who’s going to turn up and have the best game of the year, so that’s how we do it. We’re always looking at what-ifs and how they’re going about it.
‘‘We also know that we spend a bit little bit of time on that but, if we get our mindset right and get our detail right, that that gives us our best chance of playing well and winning.’’
The health of Sonny Bill Williams is something the All Blacks are thinking about this week. The second five-eighth is over his shoulder injury, but has now taken ill.
But beyond him, and lock Brodie Retallick, those in camp are all fit to play.