Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus was delighted with his team’s biggest victory ever against the All Blacks in Wellington on Saturday night, but he said they would keep their feet on the ground with a tough task ahead against Argentina in their remaining two Castle Lager Rugby Championship matches in Durban and London.
The 43-10 victory was the third successive Test at Sky Stadium that the Boks were undefeated, following a win in 2018 and a draw in 2019. It was also the All Blacks’ biggest defeat ever, while it also catapulted the Boks back to the top of the world rankings and saw them retain the Freedom Cup for the second year in a row.
Erasmus was humble in victory and said, “We’ve been on the other side of such a result when we lost 57-0 against them, and they managed to retain their win record at Eden Park and didn’t throw it in our faces, but we’ll take this win, and we are very happy with the result.”
The Bok coach added: “We are pleased with the performance and the way the guys who didn’t play prepared this team for what to expect. It was certainly pleasing to see how these players raised their hands and demonstrated that they can perform at this level.
“We do have a couple of injuries, which we do not know the extent of yet, but the two that appear to be serious are Lood (de Jager) and Aphelele (Fassi).”
Erasmus praised the die-hard Springbok supporters for their faith in the team and the coaching staff after naming a new look backline for the clash and said he was thrilled that the team could make the country proud once again.
“The main thing for us going into this game was to get the belief in the team back again, and we are back at No 1 in the world, but we know we are going to face two tough matches against Argentina, who have really been playing well,” said Erasmus.
“As a team, we want our people to believe in us because we see and feel what they do for us, and everyone back home trusts us to do our best. For us, it is never about proving people wrong.”
Springbok captain Siya Kolisi shared his coach’s sentiments about the result and said: The players focused on the task at hand.
“The coaches allowed us the freedom to be ourselves on the field,” said Kolisi.
“They’ve been saying all week that we should not worry about making mistakes, we just had to stick to our structures and to believe in ourselves.”
Kolisi also gave the coaches credit for switching things around in the team and backing some of the so-called younger players: “They picked guys who haven’t been playing a lot, and the regular players stuck behind them all the way, and that contributes to us being tight as a team.”
The Springboks may have reclaimed the top spot on the world rankings with this victory, but Erasmus was careful to let the victory cloud the team’s judgement about the challenge ahead against Argentina, who edged Australia 28-26 in their round-four encounter in Sydney earlier on Saturday.
“We’ve achieved nothing,” said Erasmus.
“Everyone is still in the competition, and we will still have to face a well-drilled Argentina outfit in the next few weeks.
“We made a few errors in the first 30 minutes, and we have no doubt New Zealand will pick themselves up from this result. We’ll enjoy this one and start looking at Argentina from tomorrow.”
The Springboks will make the journey back to South Africa in the early hours of Sunday morning and will reassemble in camp on Thursday.