Rassie Erasmus tries to keep his focus on Argentina

For much of his press conference with local journalists this week Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus kept insisting he was focusing on the one-off Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires on Saturday night.

The All Blacks descended on Cape Town this week ahead of their first four-match series against South Africa that kicks off at Ellis Park on August 22.

And as much as he tried to focus the discussion on their South American rivals, journalists frequently brought him back to the New Zealand campaign.

The coach understood, but his concern about Argentina was equally understandable; in the past 10 years, the Boks have a win rate of only 57.1% on that side of the Atlantic. That’s four out of seven. “It’s going to be a tough one [against the All Blacks], but we play Argentina first so that’s our first goal ... I can see everybody’s asking questions about New Zealand, but we have to beat Argentina next week, so let’s get past that.”

Yet there’s still a sense that the Argentina match is serious preparation for the All Black tour, bringing back the likes of captain Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager, Morne van den Berg and flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.

None of them have played in the national set-up since last year.

Use of players

Erasmus was comfortable that most of his squad had played in the United Rugby Championship (URC) or the opening three Nations Championship Tests, but then, talking about his planned use of players, he spoke about Argentina as a precursor to the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour.

“We feel comfortable that over a four-Test match series against New Zealand you probably shouldn’t peak in the first game and then not be able to last the last four games … And that included Argentina … so if you want to call it that’s five games in a row that we must produce. I think when we get to the crucial games and the Greatest Rivalry our guys will be okay.”

The coach pointed out that he didn’t think either team expected to win the series 4-0 — that result that has occurred only once between the two sides, by the Springboks at home in 1949.

“I think it’s going to be much tougher than that. But we’ve learned our lessons many times against Argentina; if you take your foot off the pedal you can get a hiding there, and we certainly want to try and prevent that.”

The last thing we’d want to do is keep a guy with us and not use him during the All Black series

—  Rassie Erasmus, Springbok coach

Erasmus also insisted that he didn’t want players in the squad not getting game time, saying he’d release them to their franchises, potentially to play against New Zealand. “The last thing we’d want to do is keep a guy with us and not use him during the All Black series.

“A guy like [Johan Grobbelaar] must play again this weekend for us, we want to see how Jan-Hendrik [Wessels] maybe does. That’s why a guy like Malcolm [Marx] will stay behind ... Then again we also don’t want to release players if we’re not 100% sure we’re covered in those positions for the All Black Test matches.

“As far as we can release without jeopardising our squad depth for this specific series, we will try and release. We’ll probably look at … I would say between 38 and 40 and then we might still out of that release players if they don’t get enough game time in the Springbok Test matches.”

Against Argentina Erasmus has a squad of 26.

Forwards: Lood de Jager, Ben-Jason Dixon, Thomas du Toit, Eben Etzebeth, Johan Grobbelaar, Cameron Hanekom, Siya Kolisi, Elrigh Louw, Wilco Louw, Zachary Porthen, Gerhard Steenekamp, Marco van Staden, Boan Venter, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Cobus Wiese.

Backs: Andre Esterhuizen, Aphelele Fassi, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Ethan Hooker, Quan Horn, Herschel Jantjies, Canan Moodie, Handre Pollard, Cobus Reinach, Morne van den Berg, Edwill van der Merwe.