The Springboks head coach, Rassie Erasmus, says they picked the team three weeks ago, during a training camp in Jersey. Nothing he’s seen in the way England played against New Zealand and Australia seems to have changed his mind. If anything, the two defeats only confirmed what he already suspected.
“You know, when you lose two games, even if it’s by a point or last-minute try, the pressure does start to build,” Erasmus said. “I’ve been there. I certainly know how quickly it can get to you. And when that happens you normally fall back on to what works for you.”
Which is why Erasmus believes England will revert to the same sort of gameplan they used in the World Cup semi-final last year. “We very much expect them to try to squeeze us with the kicking game.” He stopped short of naming Steve Borthwick’s team for him, the way he did before that World Cup match, but he did predict, with utmost confidence, that Borthwick would “definitely” pick Freddie Steward at full-back. Two hours later, Borthwick proved him right. England’s coach must feel like he’s been playing poker with a mirror over his shoulder.
South Africa have made 12 changes to the team that beat Scotland, including the entire backline. The only players who will start both games are the prop Ox Nché, hooker Bongi Mbonambi and lock Eben Etzebeth. England will have been anticipating most of the switches given that South Africa are on a six-day turnaround, but there are still a couple they won’t have seen coming among them. Erasmus has picked Manie Libbok at fly-half, even though he allowed him to play only the first half-hour of that semi-final, and he has recalled Wilco Louw at tighthead.
Erasmus has also picked a five-three split on the bench, instead of stacking it with six or seven forwards. It’s the same arrangement he used in the semi-final, too. “England is the only team that does not have a six-day turnaround, and our six-day turnaround is in the England week,” Erasmus said. “We need to make sure we can handle their kicking game, which seems to be something that they really fall back on, and their rush defence, which will certainly have a heavy toll on our backs. That’s why we went with a 5-3 split. And then hopefully our forwards are still fresh because they didn’t all play the full 80 minutes.”
By the time kick-off comes around the backline, Erasmus said, will have spent the last nine days preparing specifically for this match. “Last week after those guys helped the team prepare for Scotland, they turned their heads to England and they started analysing them.” He is clearly still stewing over that World Cup match, when England came within two points of beating them. He even said the decision to pick Libbok was specifically because “we like to give a guy a second chance, and it was against England, you know, where we had to make the substitution in the 32nd minute”.
Erasmus says that the only real difference he sees between this England team and that one is in their defence. “The guys tackle, man. They might miss a few, but hell, they make reads and they sometimes make misreads, but they tackle, you know? And that’s a sign of a team that cares a lot.”
England’s attack, based around Marcus Smith, didn’t seem to worry him much at all, maybe because Smith’s former Harlequins coach Jerry Flannery is now with the Springboks. The irony is that it ought to be Borthwick who has the inside line on the opposition, given that he hired Erasmus’s former assistant Felix Jones last year. Then Jones quit.
“It would be morally wrong for me to comment on, but I can say I don’t think it would have been a personality clash,” Erasmus said. “If it was, I wouldn’t talk about it, because I don’t know about it, but I don’t think one should also just point fingers and say ‘someone worked here, why aren’t they working there?’ Sometimes what’s needed in one team is not exactly what’s needed in another team.”
Erasmus clearly likes Borthwick, and has some sympathy for him. “I’ve been on that side. Two, three years ago, we lost three on the trot, and the next game was New Zealand, and it was almost four on the trot, you know? You tend to make emotional decisions, and we start listening to what the media say, try to please them a little bit.
“But I think Steve is too smart for that. I don’t think he’s that kind of man. Hopefully there’s an environment around him that allows him to believe in what he’s doing. And hopefully he’ll get the win.” He paused. “Next weekend,” Erasmus laughed, not this one.
