End‑of‑year tour may redeem Springboks

Springboks rugby coach Rassie Erasmus believes South Africa’s surprise 42-38 loss to the Wallabies in Perth on Sunday could be a blessing in disguise, after they were brought down to earth following 13 changes for the one-off Test.

Lessons learned from the defeat with different personnel could work in their favour with the World Cup Down Under just one year away on Thursday, according to Erasmus.

On Sunday, the four-time world champions were sloppy and even though they threatened to steal an unlikely win after Australia were reduced to 11 players after four yellow cards in the closing minutes, they weren’t the same force that saw them record three straight wins over the All Blacks to clinch the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series 3-1 earlier this month.

Erasmus said: “Australia is a good team, they definitely have improved since Les [Kiss] has been there. They’re the World Cup hosts. We might strike them in a vital playoff game and it’s nice to have a taste of them. So I’m not going to say lessons learned, but I think it was a valuable experience for us what happened tonight.”

One defeat doesn’t make a team bad, so count on Erasmus getting it right when they travel abroad for their end-of-year tour against Italy, France and Ireland and a potential Nations Championship final in November.