‘The job is not done yet’ – Rassie Erasmus and Siya Kolisi react to Springboks’ ‘far from perfect performance’

Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus admits their performance was “far from perfect” despite beating Ireland for the first time in four attempts on Saturday.

A 27-20 success sees South Africa end a three-game losing streak against the Irish as Kurt-Lee Arendse, Cheslin Kolbe and a late penalty try helped them to victory.

Ireland‘s tries came via Jamie Osborne, Conor Murray and Ryan Baird as the Springboks move 1-0 up in the series, with the second game in Durban next weekend.

Goal achieved

Bok head coach Erasmus is now targeting improvement from his charges following their first triumph over Ireland since 2016 in that Kings Park meeting.

“Overall, the goal was achieved but it was far from a perfect performance,” he said.

“Ireland are a team we’ve had zero success against since (we took over as a coaching staff in) 2018 and they’ve really had our number.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a monkey off our back but it’s a really good competitive opponent, who are number two in the world, and any day they can step up and beat you and be number one.”

Erasmus continued with a warning to his side that Andy Farrell’s men will come with a plan in the second Test, with the Springboks looking to wrap up the series.

“Ireland will work out what we tried to do tonight, and we are going to try and work out what they did because they also scored three tries,” the head coach added.

“Next week I’ll expect the same from them – they’ll never give up and they’ll try to be more dominant. They’ll be more settled in the second Test – they were disrupted with injuries – but even when Cheslin scored his try [to make it 20-8] to put us in a strong position, they didn’t give up and even to the last second we were nervy about the game.”

Kolisi reaction

Meanwhile, Springboks captain Siya Kolisi was equally wary of an Irish response as he stressed the series was still very much alive heading into the second game.

“Of course, this game was very important for us,” he said. “We haven’t beaten them since 2016, so it was special for our confidence. But the job is not done yet. We want to win the series and we know they are going to come back harder.

“Even in the game today it looked like we were going to pull away but they kept coming back so we know it is going to be another proper Test in Durban.”