Rassie Erasmus says the Springboks are giving Australia their full respect and expect a tough game in Perth despite making 10 changes to the team that won in the opening round of the Rugby Championship in Brisbane. DYLAN JACK reports.
Erasmus has overhauled the team that claimed South Africa’s first win in Brisbane since 2013, making no fewer than 10 changes to the lineup that beat Australia 33-7.
Salmaan Moerat will captain the Springboks, while scrumhalf Morne van den Berg and lock Ruan Nortje make their first starts in the green and gold.
Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Thomas du Toit will pack down either side of Johan Grobbelaar in the starting front row after lining up against Portugal in Bloemfontein last month.
Five other players who were members of that emphatic victory also join them in Van den Berg, Aphelele Fassi, Lukhanyo Am, Makazole Mapimpi and Manie Libbok, with the latter starting on the replacements bench showing a traditional 5-3 split.
Despite the number of changes, Erasmus is confident some of the new combinations will quickly find their footing.
“This is not something that has been drawn from the air. We’ve put out a team to win,” Erasmus said.
“I think we have enough continuity. Jan-Hendrik and Grobbies played against Portugal, Thomas du Toit has been to two World Cups with us, Salmaan captained us against Portugal, Marco van Staden has always been with us, Erigh Louw played really well, we’ve got Grant Williams on the bench, Sacha [Feinberg-Mngomezulu] is playing his sixth or seventh match in a row, Makazole, Cheslin [Kolbe], Jesse [Kriel] and Lukhanyo we all know.
“We’ve been training together against each other for quite some time. The way the squad is currently – and the players understand it – is we are 33 players out of 45 – if you take the wider squad. The continuity is not just on matchday, it’s in the training sessions on Monday and Tuesday.
“Hopefully, this team does gel.”
Erasmus disagreed with the suggestion that the sheer number of changes means that the Boks are willing to throw Saturday’s game, or are disrespecting the Wallabies by not retaining what is considered to be close to their full strength lineup.
“I think it would be a slap in the face of the guys who are playing this weekend, if we think they are not as good as the guys who played last weekend. We trust them fully,” Erasmus said.
“If you have to pick between Thomas du Toit and Frans Malherbe and Vincent Koch…if you look at this team, we still have 14 World Cup winners. This is not disrespecting Australia, or us feeling nonchalant about a game.
“This is us picking a team that we feel is good enough to win, although it will be tough against a team that wants to bounce back. If this team that is playing this weekend took on the Springbok team that was playing last weekend, they would give them a hell of a game. We try to get the team as close to one another in terms of the players in different positions.
“It’s going to be interesting who steps up in the Test area here in Perth. It wasn’t easy, but we trust everybody.”
Photo: Anton Geyser/Gallo Images
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Src: sarugbymag.co.za
