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Boks have edge over England in Rassie era

rugby16 November 2021 08:08| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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The Springboks have had the edge over England in what you could call the Rassie Erasmus era, with the thumping win in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final breaking what had been a 2-all deadlock up to that point.

However, as with South Africa’s recent record against Wales, with so many of the Welsh wins over the Boks since 2013 and up to when the drought was broken at the start of their current tour coming in games played outside of the international window, context is everything. And if you delve behind the results, and factor in what was at stake and how the games turned out, there’s only really been one exception to the rule that the Boks tend to win against England when there’s something on the line.

ELEMENT OF EXPERIMENTATION

The first of the two England wins over South Africa since the start of 2018 and the Erasmus era was in a dead rubber test in Cape Town. The Boks had already convincingly sewn up the first series they played in Erasmus’ time as national director of rugby, and in those days Bok coach, and there was an element of experimentation in the selection for the dead rubber Newlands test, with five key changes being made to a winning team.

There was method in it of course - Erasmus needed to test his depth and would probably correctly argue now that in doing that he was able to be more certain of some of his selections later on in his first season in charge. Indeed, there was a fair amount of experimentation on Erasmus’ part back in those days, and it probably cost him results away against Australia and Argentina in the Rugby Championship. The pay-off though was the all important win over New Zealand in Wellington, the one that really inspired the confidence that started the team on the road to World Cup glory.

This is being written on the day of the team announcement for Saturday’s test against England at Twickenham, the last game the Boks will play before the 2022 term begins for them in the middle of next year.

The mood they take into that break will depend on the result, for victory will mean them remaining No1 in the world for some time. Defeat will put that status at risk and prove a negative way to end an extraordinary year where the Boks have probably achieved more than should have been anticipated given their 19 month Covid inspired break from international rugby.

Speaking after the win over Scotland at Murrayfield last week, coach Jacques Nienaber, who is pretty much twinned with Erasmus when it comes to their working relationship, sort of gave a hint that he will keep his eye on the other objective of this tour, being the creation and growth of depth, in his selection.

His selection will still have winning in mind, but then so did Erasmus’ selection for the Cape Town dead rubber in 2018.

The five changes he made backfired, with the Boks losing by 15 points and looking nothing like the assured, confident team they were the previous week. Hopefully that lesson from history will have been internalised for the most important thing for most South Africans this week is that their team wins. The 2023 World Cup can wait, that’s still two years away.

NOT CONVERTING DOMINANCE CAN BITE YOU

The game against England later in that first year for Erasmus, the one at Twickenham on the end of year tour, also had lessons to be taken from it. In this case it was something that should be very much on the Bok minds given one of the areas they struggled last week against Scotland and also on this tour generally - they need to make better use of their attacking opportunities and convert any kind of territorial or possession dominance into points or it could come to bite them.

The Boks have seldom dominated as comprehensively as they did in the first quarter of an hour against Scotland last week and failed to come away with any points. Yes, the Scotland defence was excellent, but it should be a concern that the Boks spent so much time in the red zone without converting. It was a similar story at stages of the game in Cardiff that preceded it.

They got away with it against Scotland and Wales but might not get away with it against England, and the 2018 game was one where failure to convert definitely bit them. The Boks had the ascendancy for most of the first half and looked poised to take the game by the scruff of the neck as they enjoyed upwards of 70% in both the territory and possession battle.

Some of the calls from referee Angus Gardner didn’t help them, but they were also sloppy, and it led to England still being well in the game at halftime. There was the controversial decision, or non-decision, from the referee in the dying seconds, the tackle by Owen Farrell on Andre Esterhuizen that should have been penalised, but the Boks cost themselves on their previous visit to Twickenham through their failure to get the scoreboard ticking over like it should have in the first half.From a South African viewpoint, hopefully they won’t repeat that on Saturday.

A LOOK BACK AT THE LAST 5 GAMES BOKS V ENGLAND

9 June 2018 Johannesburg (first match of three match series)

South Africa 42 England 39

This game will be remembered partly for it being Rassie Erasmus’ entry as Bok coach - the previous week’s loss to Wales was with an experimental team in an exhibition game in Washington - but mainly for it being Siya Kolisi’s debut as Springbok captain. There was much fanfare before the game and Erasmus admitted in retrospect that perhaps he underestimated the impact that Kolisi’s elevation to the captaincy would have on the public, and he could have protected and prepared the skipper better for the pressure that was piled onto him.

As it turned out Erasmus, Kolisi and the rest of the Boks found themselves in a dark hole very early in that first test. England started like they had a train to catch and exploited the Bok unfamiliarity at that point with the defensive system that they really started to build into a few games later that year, in the win over the All Blacks.

England looked like they were able to score at will as they raced into a 21-3 lead after just 16 minutes and at that point it looked like the Erasmus and Kolisi coronation was going to be a disaster. However, in the Supersport docuseries Chasing the Sun, Kolisi and some of his teammates speak about how the players, in particular someone like senior player Duane Vermeulen, threw their support behind the stunned captain and rallied around the cause.

A try by Faf de Klerk settled nerves and then came two in quick succession, both of them spectacular scores, from Sbu Nkosi and the Boks were back in the game. Willie le Roux also crossed before halftime and although Owen Farrell steadied his won team with a penalty on the stroke of the break, the Boks had momentum.

They eventually won a high scoring game by three points in a game that telegraphed two things - one of them was the Bok fighting spirit, for few teams would have been able to recover from an 18 point deficit like that, and another was the physicality and forward strength, once the pack got the bit between it’s teeth, that has become a hallmark of this era of Bok rugby.

16 June 2018 Bloemfontein (Second test)

South Africa 23 England 12

The start of this game wasn’t completely unlike the first part of the opening test a week earlier - Mike Brown crossed for a try in the ninth minute and Jonny May did the same three minutes later. One of those tries was converted so in front of a stunned Toyota Stadium crowd, it was England who led 12-0 after 12 minutes. Those were though the last salvoes to be fired by the visitors, for from then on the Bok pack took complete control of proceedings.

Duane Vermeulen was magnificent, so was RG Snyman, who was in the starting team in that series due to an injury that kept Eben Etzebeth out of action until the Rugby Championship. Vermeulen capped his performance with a 23rd minute try and there was a penalty try in the 49th minute, while Handre Pollard contributed the rest of the points with his boot as the Boks ran out fairly comfortable winners.

The 21 unanswered points the Boks scored over the last hour of the game pretty much summed up their dominance on a day where, had they taken all their chances, they could easily have won by more.

23 June Cape Town (Third test)

South Africa 10 England 25

One of the biggest personal memories of the build-up week to what had become a dead rubber test was the pressure that the England media placed the coach Eddie Jones under in the wake of the series defeat.

After winning the first two tests and clinching the series, there was certainly less on the final game than there was for England, with Jones being questioned forcefully, and answering in his typical sarcastic and abrasive way, at the team announcement press conference in Umhlanga Rocks. England based themselves in Umhlanga for the bulk of that series, with the team just flying out to match venues the day before the game, and that was one of the many things the English scribes took issue with.

I had the honour of hosting Jones as MC of an event at Villagers club on the Thursday before the Cape Town test, and he showed the better side of himself by taking the pressure being piled on him in a humorous way. At the same time as being able to retain his humour, however, Jones admitted he was under the cosh. Although pretty certain his job was safe, he needed to win the final test to stop the surround noise and negativity that was enveloping his team. And against a Bok team that had been changed for experimental reasons, that is exactly what England did.

Elton Jantjies was selected to play flyhalf in the game and he was one of the selections that didn’t come off for the Boks.

And as he had failed in big games previously, or was perceived to have failed previously, the “I told you so” brigade was out in full force afterwards. But while there can be no denying that the Boks might have been better off with the calm assurance and steadiness that Pollard had shown in the previous two tests in that wet weather match, it also needs to be noted that this was early in the Erasmus tenure and Jantjies may have been suffering in those days from the nerves that come with always feeling that you are on trial.

Jantjies’ failure that day might have been the consequence of his relationship with some of his previous Bok coaches. Jantjies isn’t often a starter for the Boks, but he is seen as an important member of the squad, and it is noticeable that in recent times he has displayed much better BMT when coming on as a replacement.

It wasn’t just the Jantjies mistakes in that game that cost the Boks, the forwards also didn’t front like they had previously, and by the time the final whistle went England were deserved and comfortable winners.

3 November 2018 London (Autumn international)

England 12 South Africa 11

England went into this game with an inexperienced pack and were pummelled by the Bok unit in the first half and it was only some poor decision making and sloppy execution that kept England in the game in the first half. That and the unerring accuracy of Owen Farrell’s kicking boot. The Bok errors included a few over throws at lineouts on the England line, while Maro Itoje was sinbinned for not rolling away after a try saving tackle on Sbu Nkosi.

Right wing Nkosi did score the only try of the match, which added to an earlier penalty from Handre Pollard, looked to be setting the Boks on their way to victory. However, Pollard pulled the conversion, and the Boks just couldn’t convert their dominance for the remainder of the half into points. Instead two well struck penalties kept England well in the game as they went to halftime with just a two point deficit.

It was a low scoring, scrappy affair, but England were growing in confidence and after halftime they took the lead through a long range Elliot Daly penalty before relinquishing it again to another Pollard penalty with 13 minutes to go. A scrum penalty was then seized upon by England, with Farrell kicking his third penalty to put England back into the lead. England had enjoyed the better of the second half as the Boks appeared to go into a slumber, but they woke up towards the end and Pollard hit the post with a long range penalty with four minutes to go.

It was all the Boks in the final minutes and they should have won, for there was no excusing referee Angus Gardner’s failure to penalise Farrell for the no arms tackle on Andre Esterhuizen that dominated the media post-mortems for days afterwards. The bottom line though for the Boks was that they should have made more of their dominance in the first half. Had they done so, they wouldn’t have needed a penalty to win it.

2 November 2019 Yokohama (Rugby World Cup final)

South Africa 32 England 12

What more is there to say about this game? Looking back, what seems particularly bizarre is how overwhelming England’s favourite status was going into what was the second World Cup final between them and the Boks. Well, maybe it does make some sense if you consider how emphatically superior England were to New Zealand in their semifinal, but bumping into England scribes around Tokyo that week, and being invited onto one podcast with some of them, it quickly became apparent that they thought the final had already been played.

It was in the build-up to that game that the current negativity about the Bok game plan really started. And to be fair, for a neutral the kick-a-thon semi-final between the Boks and Wales, where there were a whopping 83 field kicks across the 80 minutes, must have been like watching paint dry.

But there was method in the Bok approach against a Wales team that under Warren Gatland often had the wood over them, and once they were through to the final, the South African determination and physicality was always going to be a big factor and one that England should underestimate at their peril.

Whether they were as guilty of underestimating South Africa as their media and some of the England ex-players were is not known, but what we can be sure of is that few if any teams would have been able to live with the Boks that day. They were in the “we draw a line in the sand that the opposition just won’t cross” that always makes them such hard opponents to beat in really big games, and with the scrum dominant from from the first set piece, and the Boks surprising their opponents by playing a bit more than they might have been expected to, it was always South Africa’s game to lose.

For a while, when England were still in it as they trailed by just six points despite being dominated so comprehensively, there may have been some South Africans fearing a replay of the Twickenham game the year before, when England pretty much stole a game they should have lost. But once Makazole Mapimpi was sent in by Lukhanyo Am for the first ever Bok try scored in a World Cup final it was obvious that the Webb Ellis trophy was heading back to South Africa. Cheslin Kolbe’s later try, when England looked out on their feet, was just the cherry on the cake of a remarkable and rousing triumph.

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