It was the German philosopher George Hegel who said “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history,” - but then he didn’t meet Rassie Erasmus.
The Springbok coach is clearly an exception to the accepted rule that man doesn’t learn from history, for there was a lot of acknowledgement of what history has shown to the rugby world in his post-match comments after his team beat Scotland 32-15 in Edinburgh on Sunday night at the start of a three match tour that will reach its apex against England this coming Saturday.
England’s loss to Australia at their headquarters, renamed Allianz Stadium, at the weekend was unexpected and has left them with two losses in two starts in the Autumn International Series. That is hardly a synopsis that should give them hope against the world champions. Factor in the two narrow defeats in New Zealand in July, and England have actually lost four games in a row.
As is the wont and habit of the England sporting media, the over the top purple prose that greeted a narrow loss to the All Blacks the week before has been replaced by doom and gloom. Thanks to their loss to the Wallabies, England have gone overnight from being considered in a good space to challenge for the Six Nations title early next year, to being in a slump.
Post-match reaction from Rassie Erasmus: “The scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story” - more here: https://t.co/89OJoaEQRf 🗣 #Springboks #ForeverGreenForeverGold #SCOvRSA pic.twitter.com/JhAhoDLmjA
— Springboks (@Springboks) November 10, 2024
Erasmus knows full well though, because he has learnt from history, that this is the best place for England to be ahead of a game against a side ranked higher than them.
“Twickenham will be a different kind of pressure. They are a very desperate team, who have lost two matches now,” said Erasmus.
“Australia might not be up there rankings-wise, but we know where they’re going with (coach) Joe Schmidt. England are a desperate team who almost beat New Zealand, almost beat Australia, so it’s going to be a very tough game.”
ENGLAND MOST DANGEROUS WHEN BACKS ARE TO THE WALL
Erasmus wouldn’t have had to spend too long on his history lessons to come up with that. England weren’t given a hope when a year ago, after some less than inspiring performances against minor opposition, they headed into their Rugby World Cup semifinal against the Boks. They ended up dominating the game for 65 minutes and were unlucky to lose.
Erasmus won’t have forgotten that, but there is a more recent example of England’s ability to respond to tough situations in the way that some Bok teams, who lost more than the current one does, used to. It came in the most recent Six Nations, in other words February this year, when they stood up from a chastening defeat to Scotland in Edinburgh and beat Ireland in London.
England like the backs-to-the-wall scenario, or at least it works for them. The brickbats that will be thrown at them this week by English pundits who lauded them this week but are now talking about their lowest ebb since the darker days of the Eddie Jones era will make them more determined, and as Erasmus says, also desperate.
BOKS SET INCREDIBLY HIGH STANDARDS
Mention though of the England defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield in February cues a point about the modern Boks. They were playing against a team that hasn’t lost to England at Murrayfield for several years now, and won with something to spare, and yet they were unhappy with their performance.
They do set themselves incredibly high standards, and judging from the post-match comments, the preview to the game suggesting that victory was no longer enough for this group of players and coaches, it needed to be done in style, was spot on.
“We obviously set high standards, we drive it within the team,” said the skipper on the day and man of the match performer, Eben Etzebeth.
“We want to keep on performing and we know now and again there is going to be a performance which we are not that proud of.”
Etzebeth was echoing the sentiments of his coach, who said: “It’s definitely not a performance we are very proud of.”
It’s easy to understand the thought behind those words. The Boks coughed up an inordinate amount of ball with their high error-rate, there were stages of the game where their discipline was up to standard as they gave away penalties, and their lineout was all over the place early on.
And yet they beat probably the best Scotland team the Boks have fronted at Murrayfield in the post-isolation era by 17 points. There were also reasons why the Boks made errors around the fringes of the loose scrums - the Scots attacked the breakdowns with huge ferocity.
CHANGES DIDN’T HELP THE ATTACK TO GEL
That the Boks won was down to two of their staples of the past few years - their scrum, particularly the depth they have in that department, and their suffocating, physical defence. Newcomer Tom Jordan, centres Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu were outstanding, and Finn Russell showed he was world class, and yet apart from one disallowed try, they couldn’t make any headway through the Bok defensive system.
With the scrum winning a penalty almost every time a set piece was set in the second half, those two ingredients enabled the Boks to thwart what was a golden spell on attack from the Scots in the third quarter.
Erasmus was happy with the defence, but less so with the way his team gelled on attack, although he was the first to also admit that making 11 changes from a side that clinched the Castle Lager Rugby Championship with a 48-7 win last time out didn’t help.
“We were nervous all week. If you make 11 changes to a side, while we expect the players to immediately gel, we know it won’t always happen like that. That’s certainly something we want to get into the team. No matter who you play, our system and communication always have to be up to scratch.
“We knew we had good cover on the bench. The scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story, but we can be proud of playing against Finn Russell in two games and not giving a try away. That’s really hard to do.”