South Africa take risk with team selections as fans back experimentation
Rugby Union - Autumn Internationals - Wales v South Africa - Principality Stadium, Cardiff, Wales, Britain - November 29, 2025 South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus before the match Action Images via Reuters/Andrew Boyers
PRETORIA, July 11 : South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus is happy to take risks with team selection because he feels he has supporters’ backing after the world champions were given a scare by Scotland on Saturday.
South Africa beat the Scots 42-28 at Loftus Versfeld in their second game of the new Nations Championship, but their experimental line-up was pushed to the limits with the Scots level at halftime and dangerous through most of the second half.
Erasmus wants to use the new competition to increase the pool of players he will have available for South Africa’s defence of their World Cup crown in Australia next year, but making the fans aware of his plans has been key to the process.
“I don’t think the crowd was happy at the end but I think South Africa understands what we tried to do in this game,” he said.
“In the past, I felt if we made four changes, people would ask ‘what are you doing?’ But I feel the interaction between us and the supporters gives us a togetherness, and people know what we are trying to do. That’s something that’s changed over the years.
“It’s the crowd believing in the team because they could easily have gone against us with those easy tries we gave away, but for me the most important thing is learning about the players,” Erasmus added.
Scotland were always threatening and had South Africa on the back foot in many stages of the test, so squeezing out another win, after making 10 changes from the side that beat England in Johannesburg last Saturday in their first Nations Championship game, was essential.
“It’s much nicer when you win and you learn than when you lose and you learn,” said Erasmus.
“There was a stage in 2018 when we were learning but we were losing – but it was important to find out who can do it at this level and who needs some work.
“We had 12 guys who each had less than 10 caps – half the team – so we knew cohesion was going to be a problem.
“That you could see in the defence when we made some subs at the end. We learned a lot about some players – not that they are not good enough but that there’s a lot of work to be done.
“This is the test that some of the guys needed – not against a tier-two nation but against a tier-one nation that’s a really class team.”
Erasmus is expected to again switch around his line-up when next Saturday they host their third game of the home leg of Nations Championship fixtures against Wales in Durban.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Atlanta; Editing by Clare Fallon)
