Head coach Rassie Erasmus was quick to temper expectations after his team rewrote rugby history, masterminding a clinical 43-28 victory over the All Blacks in front of a record-shattering 68,173 crowd at M&T Bank Stadium.
The emphatic win sealed a 3-1 series victory in the inaugural Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour, capping off Erasmus’s 100th Test guiding the playing affairs of South Africa. Despite the fireworks and a six-tries-to-four spectacle, the mastermind behind the world-number-one team was resolute that the scoreline didn't tell the full story.
The historic crowd in Baltimore set a new USA rugby record, with the vast majority appearing to be expatriate South Africans making their voices heard in Maryland. Erasmus expressed his awe at the global support but quickly shifted the focus back to the citizens watching from home.
“It was awesome to see so many South Africans here; I don’t know how they afford it or how they got here, but it’s great,” Erasmus said.
“We appreciate the people who were here, but we don’t forget the people who were at home; the people on the farm or the boy in the township or the people in the shopping mall. That’s what drives us. Obviously we want to win, and that’s great for us as a team, and that’s why we play rugby, but we want them to be happy.”
The victory cemented South Africa’s undisputed status at the top of the world rankings, a position Erasmus conceded does not always make them popular globally.
“I know we sometimes annoy other people around the world for the way we go about things, or the angle we take on issues, but we really care the most about South African people,” he admitted. “We enjoy the other people around the world, and we understand their opinions and love the banter, but there’s only one reason for us as a team, and for us as a country, it’s for South Africa.”
Holding a narrow 17-14 lead at the break, South Africa faced a resilient All Blacks fightback before a pivotal solo try late in the second half swung the momentum. Even though the Springboks won three successive matches to claim the title, Erasmus refused to boast about their dominance.
“I wouldn’t say we were the better team [today],” noted Erasmus. “At 60 minutes, the game was still in the balance. We appreciate that we won, but the margin between us and New Zealand is very small. We came out to win this because we had more points on the board, and that’s probably the most important thing in most of the games."
“Up until the last 11 minutes, I wasn’t sure if we were going to win. We appreciate that we won, but we definitely don’t think the margin between us and New Zealand is that big.”