Satisfied Erasmus calls for improvement from Boks

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus described the team’s convincing victory against Italy at the Allianz Stadium in Turin on Saturday as "satisfying," but he emphasized the importance of improving on their performance with two significant matches against France and Ireland ahead. The Boks kicked off their Nations Championship Northern Series with a strong performance, scoring six tries for a commanding 45-0 halftime lead. They added three more tries in the second half while conceding only one, resulting in a decisive 66-7 victory.

Erasmus was compelled to make a late change just before kick-off as Salmaan Moerat withdrew from the match-23 due to a niggle picked up during the warm-up. Lood de Jager started in his place, with Franco Mostert joining the bench. However, this alteration had little impact on the team's performance in the first half. Erasmus noted, "Salmaan had a little bit of a back spasm on Thursday, but we thought it would clear up. He looked good at the captain’s practice, but unfortunately in the warm-up he had more back spasms, so hopefully it’s not too serious. He’s the only casualty we have from the game. I don’t think there are any other serious injuries."

Evaluating the team's overall performance, Erasmus remarked, "It’s almost impossible to put 80 minutes together at 100%. Obviously, we’re not happy with the second half. We scored 45 points in the first half, and the final score was 66, so we got another 21 points in the second half. Italy are a proud team, and despite being 45 points down, they started running the ball from everywhere. We also made some changes that we wanted to see, which causes a bit of a loss of rhythm. But when you win 66–7, I don’t think you can start nitpicking problems in the second half. It wasn’t perfect, but it was proper."

He added, "That said, we have to play much better than this if we want to be competitive against France and Ireland. But it’s nice to know that after being a month away from each other, the boys got together and played like that."

Erasmus expressed satisfaction with the Boks' discipline, stating, "I think we only conceded one penalty in the first half, and about five penalties and five turnovers in the game, which is pretty disciplined, even though the second half was a little soft."

He attributed the team’s ability to consistently improve to their time together, saying, "The biggest thing is that we’ve been together for eight years now, and we’re slowly integrating guys like Ethan, ‘Krappie,’ Sacha, Ruan, Cameron, Jan-Hendrik, and Thomas, who is now back with us too. So we’ve been able to bring new players in gradually, and when you go to a game like this with a fully match-fit team, everyone is calm and understands the system because we’ve been coaching them for a while, it’s satisfying."

The team departed for Paris later on Saturday evening, where they will turn their focus to Friday’s Test against France at the Stade de France.