Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus agrees that Saturday’s final test in Sydney could have a big bearing on the space the Wallabies will be in when they come to South Africa but he says their competitiveness in the series against the British and Irish was something he expected.
Indeed, Erasmus disclosed that he was one of the people in the Bok coaching group to back the Australians to win last week’s second test in Melbourne.
“I had the Aussies to win by four points,” he admitted when asked in an online press conference what he thought of the referee call that effectively decided the game in the Lions’ favour.
The Wallabies were leading by four points, Erasmus’ predicted margin of victory for the hosts, when Hugo Keenan scored the winning try with one minute left amidst Australian claims that Jac Morgan had cleaned out a contact point illegally.
Erasmus was really non-committal on the incident, which he needed to be - he’s been in enough trouble with World Rugby for expressing his opinion on referees and match officiating without him now creating headlines on something that happened on the other side of the world.
He left the impression that he felt it was a 50/50 call, which so many of the decisions made around the rucks and the collision points are - with the sticking point of course being that it happened in the match winning moment so of course the Wallabies, clearly forgetting that when they complained about Erasmus for his comments in the 2021 Lions series they said a referee should always be the sole arbiter of fact, complained about it.
STEP UP BUT HIS MEN WILL BE WELL PREPARED
That’s not really Erasmus’ issue. His big issue right now is to get the Boks ready for the visit of the Wallabies, starting with the Castle Lager Rugby Championship opener in Johannesburg on 16 August, and he made it clear that he knew Australia would be a significant step up from the opposition the Boks have faced so far in the 2025 international season.
He doesn’t necessarily buy into the theory that the Wallabies, after playing three games against the Lions, will be more battle hardened than the Boks, who haven’t played games of quite the same intensity so far this year.
“There are two ways of looking at it. One is to say that they will be battle hardened after playing such a big series against the Lions, but then if you look at us we have a scenario where we have Eben (Etzebeth) training every day against RG (Snyman), Lood (de Jager) against Ruan Nortje etc,” said Erasmus.
“You’ve got Siya (Kolisi) against Marco (van Staden) and Vincent (Koch) training against Ox (Nche). If you have training sessions conducted at proper intensity then we have had eight weeks of really top preparation. Italy also brought a lot of physicality in the first game and Georgia were also very physical so I don’t think there will be much difference when it comes to the physicality.
“What you may find is that the Wallabies will have more rounded players who are used to playing Super Rugby against New Zealanders. After this week’s game it will be either 3-0 that they lost the series, which will mean they come here hard up for the win. A lot will depend on how Joe (Aussie coach Joe Schmidt) handles the players.
“They might arrive here battle ready and if they win the last game they will feel heartened because they pushed the Lions so close in the second game, or they might arrive here punch drunk (after expending so much energy in trying to win a series they lost 3-0). They could also have three injuries in key positions and that would also make a difference.
“But I think they will take heart from last weekend, where they really played well for much of the game. Joe is coming to South Africa as the Wallaby coach but he is bringing Les Kiss (his successor) with him and that should also bring energy to the group (as the players will want to impress the next coach). I think we will have a really competitive Aussie team coming here.”
WALLABIES WILL MISS ACE FRONT-RANKER
When it comes to the potential injuries Erasmus refers to there are already some significant ones that have impacted the Lions series and could impact their games in South Africa. Given the scrumming power of the Boks, Schmidt should be particularly concerned about losing tighthead prop Allan Alaalatoa, who has been ruled out of Saturday’s Sydney game after suffering a shoulder injury in Melbourne.
It appears Alaalatoa may require surgery and will definitely miss the South African mini-tour, and the man who replaced him, Tom Robertson, endured a harrowing time against the Lions. That’s not surprising as Robertson has played most of his rugby at loosehead and was only retreaded to tighthead during the most recent Western Force campaign in Super Rugby.
The difference in experience between Lions pivot Finn Russell and the more callow Tom Lynagh, who is wearing the Wallaby No 10 because of injuries, has also arguably been one of the big points of difference between the Lions and Australians in the series.