London logistics stopped Bok selection changes Rassie wanted

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus said the logistical issues involved in playing Argentina in Durban last Saturday and then flying to London to play the Pumas again in the final match of the Rugby Championship prevented him from making some of the selection changes he would have liked.

South Africa play Argentina at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon and any sort of win should ensure they defend the Rugby Championship crown for the first time in the history of the competition, or its predecessor, the Tri-Nations Series.

Erasmus made just one change to the starting line-up that hammered the Pumas 67-30 at the vibrant Kings Park Stadium, with Ox Nche returning from a niggle to start in the loosehead prop position again. He was a late withdrawal from last weekend’s game, so in fact it is the same starting XV as originally selected. There are three changes to the bench, however, with Bongi Mbonambi recalled as the back-up hooker, scrumhalf Grant Williams over his injury and Jesse Kriel, the most-capped outside centre in Springbok history, also back in action.

But Erasmus said the travel plans had prevented him from giving more of the stalwarts a go in the Rugby Championship decider.

“The Jesse Kriel change to the bench is because of the speed the Argentina backline have got, but I would have loved to have given Franco Mostert, Handre Pollard or Makazole Mapimpi a chance. But we arrived late on Monday and we only have two days of training sessions, so you can’t change the team too much.

“You can interchange players a bit, but it’s not too easy. So I feel for them. This is definitely not our first-choice team, but I don’t think we’ll fall into the trap of underestimating the Pumas. There were some brilliant individual performances last weekend, but it was not a brilliant game as a whole.

“We want to play with freedom on attack, but that also involves defence and the kicking game. Us coaches are all trying to find the balance, we’re all chasing the perfect game. Last weekend was certainly not perfect because on 60 minutes the result was still in the balance,” Erasmus said.

As far as other challenges go, the Springbok coach pointed to Argentina being extremely fired up after their humiliation in Durban and their prowess in the air as being other obstacles his team need to overcome to make more history.

“Whatever the weather, Argentina are fantastic in the air. They won the aerial battle hands down in the first half in Durban, but in the end we had 15 more kicks than them, and that made the difference in the second half.

“History also shows that we lost 57-0 to New Zealand at North Harbour in 2017, but the next time we played them we only lost by one point in Cape Town [24-25]. We lost to the All Blacks at Eden Park this year and then the next game we won by 33 points.

“So we know how teams pitch up when they’re hurting and the reality is that Argentina are hurting. We have had some stop-start games where we didn’t do so well in periods, that’s because we chop-and-change the team and it’s nice to do that until eventually the combinations become normal,” Erasmus said.