Springboks: Rassie Erasmus Explains What  Wasn’t Right in a ‘Sad Loss’ to Puma’s

Rassie Erasmus rued the Springboks’ inaccuracies in the 29-28 defeat to Argentina in round five of the Rugby Championship, pinpointing the moment where it all went awry.

South Africa came out firing in the first half, racing out to a 17-0 lead after tries from Aphelele Fassi and Jesse Kriel, with Handre Pollard adding the conversions and a penalty after just 13 minutes.

However, the Springboks let Argentina back into the game with the Pumas taking the lead in the 26th minute.

Felipe Contepomi’s team would ultimately lead 26-22 at the break and would go on to clinch a 29-28 victory after Manie Libbok missed a late penalty to win the match for the Boks in the final knockings of the game.

Where it went wrong

Speaking after the Rugby Championship clash, Erasmus said that the “loss is not nice” and that the team felt “sad” about the result before identifying where it all went wrong for his charges.

The Springboks boss believes that Kurt-Lee Arendse’s yellow card in the 17th minute of the match was a momentum swing in the match with Argentina scoring two quick tries while the winger was off the pitch

“We did start well, I’m always nervous with games when we start so well because we tend to be a team that grinds it back from when we are behind but we should have put them away there,” Erasmus admitted.

“Unfortunately, we got the yellow card and they exploited that really well and got outside our defence a lot when Kurt-Lee was off for those 10 minutes – they scored two tries in that spell – that was the momentum shift.

“But no excuses in the second half we were 15 men and it closely fought game.”

South Africa headed into the fixture having defeated Australia and New Zealand twice and a win would have sealed the Rugby Championship title which will now be on the line when the two sides clash at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit in the final round of the competition.

Despite the team’s form heading into the clash, Erasmus said that they didn’t fancy themselves as favourites considering how well Argentina have fared in the tournament and the Boks coaching team’s decision to level several key players in South Africa to recover.

“Look we never saw ourselves as the favourites here because we did leave a couple of guys back home and wanted a few guys to experience but we desperately wanted to win,” he said.

“But then in the same breath, Argentina must get the compliments, they deserved the win even if Manie kicked it over and we still think they played better on the day than us.

“There is nice pressure now [for Test II], there’s a lot of things we could have achieved today but now it moves over to Mbombela and we have to do it there.”

“There is something special going on here with Argentina”

While the Springboks boss was clearly disappointed by the result, he was able to put a positive spin on what was to come and praised his counterpart Contepomi for what he has achieved with Los Pumas.

The legendary Argentina fly-half took over as head coach of Los Pumas at the start of the year and has led his team to a historic first in the Rugby Championship.

Since joining the competition in 2012, Argentina have never beaten Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the same year, a feat that they have now achieved in his first year in charge.

“This loss hurts a lot,” Erasmus added.

“But putting a positive spin on things to say the match in Mbombela could be fitting as a final to the competition because we must first get over this result.

“We have to point fingers at ourselves not just at the players but the coaches and management too. But that said, we have a chance to redeem ourselves next week and win the Rugby Championship.

“There is something special going on here with Argentina rugby. Felipe Contepomi has to pick his players from all over the world with no international competition and he’s getting all that input from the French, Irish and English rugby – he’s a really smart coach so compliments to them but next week will be big and will be great but we must get over tonight first.”