Rassie rates Wales as ‘toughest on tour’

SPRINGBOK coach Rassie Erasmus has showered praise on his players for restoring the pride and dignity of the team.

Having sunk to a lowly seventh place on the world rankings during the two year reign of Allister Coetzee, the Springboks are seemingly turning the corner and a set on returning back to world rugby’s top table.

There was the series win against England in June and that memorable victory against the All Blacks in New Zealand and now the Springboks are heading towards next year’s Rugby World Cup after beating France and Scotland on consecutive weekends.

While Erasmus could easily take the credit for taking the Springboks out of the doldrums, the former Springbok flank has credited his players for taking responsibility for their circumstance.

“I think sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to accept that there’s a few things wrong. I know we are still ranked number five which isn’t great. But the gap between number three (Wales) and number five is much closer than it was maybe a year ago.

“We definitely don’t have a great win record but I think the intensity and intent is there to try and get better,” said Erasmus from Cardiff.

And Erasmus’ players will have to front up one more time on Saturday in probably their toughest Test of the tour when they face off against a buoyant Wales outfit.

Even though they had a losing start to the tour against England at Twickenham, the Springboks would have taken a lot of confidence from their victories over France and Scotland and will look to confirm that they are a formidable side by beating another of the top teams in world rugby.

“We played them in Washington in that friendly which was a weird game. It was a last minute charge down which they beat us with, but they also played like a B-side so I don’t think one can judge much in that. But the way they have been playing they have been beating ‘proper’ teams. They certainly have experience in their team, they gave Scotland a comfortable beating and beat Australia, who we play against regularly. It’s going to be a tough match, this whole tour we have four tough matches and we are ending off with the toughest of the four.”

“This one is big, playing them at home, and they are on a great run and they’ve had eight successful Test matches. We are desperate to stay in winning ways and it will be a physical and tactical game,” added Erasmus.