Rassie praises Springboks’ ‘grind’ after Argentina hit out
· Citizen
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus was happy with his team’s ability to grind out a win in testing conditions after they were made to work incredibly hard to edge Argentina 17-10 in a low scoring one-off Test in Buenos Aires on Saturday night.
It was a scrappy game, with the Boks largely struggling on attack as their aerial game faltered and they made a slew of handling errors throughout the match, but their defence was rock solid and that in the end won them the match.
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Just three tries in total were scored over the 80 minutes, one to each team in the first half with them locked at 10-all at the break, before eighthman Cameron Hanekom dotted down the lone score in the second period off the back of a powerful scrum.
Argentina can be proud of pushing the top team in the world all the way, especially being without a host of regular stars, while they also handed out four debuts on the day.
‘It was going to be disjointed’
The Boks though have plenty to work on ahead of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series, but they will be happy to have seen a large number of players return from injury, and can take winning momentum into the first Test at Ellis Park later this month.
“Our focus was to beat Argentina, because we know how tough it is coming here and our track record here has never been great. Only keeping them to one try was a positive,” said Erasmus after the match.
“I always thought it was going to be disjointed, with several guys having not played in a long time and leaving 15 players back in South Africa. So it wasn’t perfect, but it was what we expected. We are happiest with the win and the grind.
“I thought our defence was good, our discipline was relatively good, and the biggest thing is our attack which we need to sort out. But we brought a lot of guys back and that will improve as they settle in.”
As always Erasmus praised the passion and fight shown by the Argentinean players, and how their incredible fans and the intimidating atmosphere brought a World Cup playoff game intensity to the contest that he was happy to overcome.
“They are a very proud rugby nation, and I always say they’ve got that same fight in them that we have back home. They’re passionate, and they never stop,” explained Erasmus.
“Even if we drew, we would have learned a lot about grinding out a win when the crowd is going crazy. The crowd was fantastic the way they encouraged Argentina in the last few minutes.
“So for us to stay calm and get over the line was big. We didn’t play well, but I thought we handled the pressure very well.”