Bok coach Rassie Erasmus refuses to throw Elton Jantjies under the bus

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus took some of the blame for flyhalf Elton Jantjies’ poor performance in the third Test against England at Newlands on Saturday.

The visitors won the match 25-10 to salvage some pride after going 2-0 down in the series in Bloemfontein a week earlier.

With the series secure Erasmus made five changes to the team‚ including bringing Jantjies back into the starting lineup even though the forecast was for wet‚ slippery conditions.

Jantjies‚ playing his 26th Test‚ has seldom looked like a world-class pivot at this level and in the treacherous conditions on Saturday‚ he struggled badly.

He dropped two high balls under little pressure‚ had a clearance kick charged down and missed a relatively straightforward penalty in addition to failing to failing to shape the game in any positive way.

As the pressure grew‚ his game crumbled and he was substituted on the hour mark.

“I don’t like taking my flyhalf off as long as he is making decisions‚” Erasmus said.

“As long as he is making decisions you can judge if they are good or bad and then you can analyse them afterwards.

“But in this game‚ and Elton will tell you this himself because he is a grown man‚ the pressure was piling up on him as the charge down showed.

"The pack wasn’t really dominating like they had in the previous games and he had young outside backs outside him.

“Overall I thought the pressure was really on Elton and so I subbed him‚ believing I could relieve the pressure on him and still win the Test match.

“It as definitely not just an Elton problem because overall our pack didn’t dominate the match. In the first two Tests Handré Pollard almost had an arm-chair ride and in this game Elton was under a lot more pressure.”

Sadly one of the loudest cheers of the evening from the 33871 crowd at Newlands was when Erasmus hooked Jantjies.

“I need to look at myself more than look at Elton in this situation‚” Erasmus said.

“Maybe the way we managed things and how we integrated players and how well we rotated them was an issue.

“We needed to make some brave calls and we did that‚ but perhaps those brave calls left some individuals to be singled out.

“There was a young inside centre and a new outside centre‚ coupled with difficult weather conditions and he was put in a position to sink or swim.

“People on the outside might be thinking this is last chance saloon for Elton but we might be thinking more long-term. We didn’t just learn about Elton today‚ we learned about playing in wet weather and managing the game.

“He is a strong character and he has a few Super Rugby games now to get his confidence back.”