Rassie Erasmus says he would rather have the Springboks taking risks and winning the World Cup than staying safe and improving their win percentage between tournaments. DYLAN JACK reports.

The age-old debate was raised during the first official Springbok press conference of the year in Cape Town, where new assistant coaches Jerry Flannery and Tony Brown were unveiled.

While the Springboks have been lauded for making history by winning back-to-back World Cups, their relatively low win percentage in between those tournaments is still used by their critics.

Between Erasmus’ first Test as head coach against Wales in Washington DC in 2018 and the pre-World Cup match against hosts Japan in 2019, the Boks won 11 out of 19 Tests, a success rate of 58%.

When Erasmus stepped up as director of rugby and Jacques Nienaber took over as head coach, the Boks won 21 out of 32 Tests between 2021 and 2023, to improve their win percentage to 66%.

As the Boks have begun their road to 2027 with the first alignment camp of the year, Erasmus, back in the role of head coach, was asked whether there would be a greater focus on improving their winning record over the next three years.

“I’m not sure to be honest with you,” Erasmus said. “Building a squad, trialing guys, giving guys opportunity, making sure that we always improve on squad depth, transforming the way we do things, trying to stay up to date… we have to try things.

“We certainly did lose a few Test matches in the last couple of years between World Cups because we tried things to know the answers when we get to the World Cup.

“It would be wonderful as head coach to do better between World Cups. Then again, do you want to try and get answers during the World Cup?

“We have had two runs at it at the last two World Cup, but know we have a clean slate.

“I would rather win the World Cup than sit at 80%. It’s better than not winning the World Cup at all and sitting at 80 to 85%. We would love to get that win percentage up, but we have to be brave and take chances with youngsters.”

Photo: Steve Haag/Gallo Images

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