Now it could get really interesting. We don’t have long to wait for Rassie Erasmus’ next step after the comprehensive win over England, for the Springbok team for the second Nations Championship game against Scotland in Pretoria is due to be announced later on Monday morning.
Coach Erasmus is going early again, probably for the same reasons he did last week, when there was really no need to hold back the announcement given the time the squad had been in camp and the preparation that had been done.
The side that will face the Scots at Loftus will be the core of the team that would have been preparing together for the last week. How many changes that will mean from the side that beat England 45-21 at Ellis Park, we will have to wait a few hours to find out, but Erasmus did always make it clear that if there was going to be experimentation and chances given to less experienced players in the group who need exposure to international rugby, it will be in the games that follow the England one.
After Scotland, the Boks will be rounding off the home leg of their Championship campaign by hosting Wales in Durban on Saturday week.
The Springboks make an emphatic start to the inaugural #NationsChampionship 🇿🇦✅#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/E4SkrVFXhk
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) July 4, 2026
SCOTLAND DO NEED TO BE RESPECTED
The Welsh game will arguably be the one that will see the biggest changes, for that is what Wales have become - a team that the Boks try things against. Scotland do need to be respected. After all, they beat England almost as comprehensively in Edinburgh a few months ago as the Boks did in Johannesburg two days ago. They also beat France in the same Guinness Six Nations campaign.
And a few hours after the Boks had completed their seven try to three triumph over England, Scotland gave the lie to the theory that they are poor travellers. Not many teams go to Argentina and win as well as Scotland did at the weekend. There’s also talk of Finn Russell returning after his injury layoff, and having the British and Irish Lion back will be a big boost for the visitors.
But there’s never as much angst around a Scotland game as there is when the Boks are playing England, and the Scots have a poor record in South Africa. They also have to travel from South America, a trip that will take them from Cordoba to Buenos Aires, from there to Sao Paulo, across the Atlantic, and through several time zones to OR Tambo. That’s not a trip for the faint-hearted, and while the All Blacks have done similar in the Rugby Championship era and won in Johannesburg, they have depth, meaning an ability to rotate selections, that the Scots don’t have.
JOBURG SHOWED TALK OF SA’s DEPTH IS NOT JUST TALK
Anyway, all of this may be moot considering what we saw in the England game, meaning the suggestion born from the emergency changes that were made that the talk of the depth Erasmus has available to him is more than just talk. And then the flexibility which allowed the Boks to adjust the dynamic of their game and team set-up in mid-stride at Ellis Park.
In the buildup to the official start of the international season Erasmus was asked ad nauseam why he wasn’t making certain selections, trying certain combinations. It was probably for want of nothing else to ask, for it’s plain logic that when you have only 23 places to fill, then there are another 23 players who have to sit out. Not all 46 can play at once. Erasmus may have some growing influence on World Rugby, but not that much influence.
Erasmus’ answer has been consistent, not just now but also when he was asked the same question in previous seasons - you need to win to make it possible to experiment. It’s a bit like that old saying that you need to earn the right to go wide. You need to earn the right to experiment, and what happened after the last Bok experience at Ellis Park is a perfect example of what can happen when things don’t go to plan.
Only Erasmus knows how much his plans for the follow-up Cape Town test were changed by Australia’s shock 38-22 win in the opening Rugby Championship game last year, but it wasn’t a comfortable week for him, and the selections and game applied at the Cape Town Stadium were conservative.
The Boks got home by virtue of Handre Pollard’s boot, both from the tee and field kicking, and the nervy win in what were admittedly not the most favourable conditions for the so-called ‘Tonyball’ approach we saw seven days earlier was a case of just finding some equilibrium rather than continuing the upward progress curve that the Bok game plan has been on since the start of 2023.
The conservatism arguably continued into the missed opportunity that was the loss to the All Blacks at Eden Park, only for Erasmus to return to radical reinvention a week later in Wellington, where a much-changed Bok team selected around a dynamic that was the diametric opposite of conservatism scored a record 43-10 win.
DIFFERENT MOOD EQUALS MORE AMBITION
This week the Boks are moving to a theatre of conflict that is just 60 kilometres up the road from Ellis Park, rather than the 1600 kilometres from Johannesburg to Cape Town last year, but the mood and the ambition will be light-years different from what it was 11 months ago.
Let’s not second guess Erasmus too much, for he has his own mind, but the success gained by having the different dynamic of Paul de Villiers and Cameron Hanekom on the flanks because of the injury to Siya Kolisi should embolden him, as should what Ben-Jason Dixon did when he came on in the second half and packed down at lock to allow Pieter-Steph du Toit to move back to his more regular role on the blindside flank.
The Boks have eight locks out currently so that’s an area that requires some experimentation, and it is a great pity that Riley Norton is injured, as this might have been the youngster’s opportunity. Aside from De Villiers and Hanekom, there are other loose-forwards in the group, such as Evan Roos, who will be itching for an opportunity.
Not that there’s any concern over Jasper Wiese, who has been in blockbusting form in his two outings at No 8 so far. We’ve long since moved on from the stage where we would see a player missing a game as being dropped. It’s all in the name of growing depth, and Erasmus has been doing that successfully for two years now and the platform created by the win in Johannesburg has now given him licence to accelerate it further.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO GROW BRILLIANT WILLEMSE’S UTILITY VALUE
Embrose Papier is due a return to international rugby and could well be paired with his Bulls teammate Handre Pollard on their home ground, and then there are a plethora of options further out wide.
For instance, good players that they both are, Aphelele Fassi and Quan Horn surely know, after watching Damian Willemse in action against England - he really should have been man of the match - that they have ground to make up in the competition to be the first-choice fullback. Right at the moment, there is surely no debate.
With Andre Esterhuizen set to miss out on selection due to the concussion he suffered in Johannesburg, this might be an opportunity for Willemse, who is a utility option as much as he is the best fullback, to have another go in the inside centre position where he was so dynamic before injury forced changes in that big win in Wellington last September.
There’s plenty of choice available to Erasmus in the front row, where he now needs to find a replacement for the injured Ox Nche. Gerhard Steenekamp, who replaced him in the sixth minute at Ellis Park, is of course the next cab off the rank at loosehead, but the prospect of Ntuthuko Mchunu, given his growth this season at the Stormers, starting in this game would be an exciting one. Wilco Louw is due a game, but then doesn’t Zach Porthen merit a start at tighthead after his solid showing as a second-half replacement?
It is indeed going to be an interesting team selection, but given the depth that Erasmus has available to him, it is one that South Africans are sure to be happy with.