Aussie strategy won’t win the 2027 World Cup: Boks coach sledges Wallabies

Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has rejected a sledge from Springboks rival Rassie Eramus that Australia are using a dated, defensive brand of rugby that won’t be enough to win the 2027 Rugby World Cup on home soil.

Erasmus was fulsome in his praise of Schmidt – his former boss in the Ireland system – last week ahead of the first Test in Johannesburg but the Wallabies pulling off an historic upset at Ellis Park has seen the temperature change ahead of the second Test in Cape Town on Sunday morning (AEST).

The Wallabies won for the first time at Ellis Park in 1963, and that was also the last time Australia won back-to-back in South Africa in consecutive weeks – albeit in reverse, with the Cape Town win first-up.

Humbled by the loss to the point that Erasmus admitted his Mum had texted him to ask if he was OK, the Boks coach made 10 changes to his side and said the team would return to some of its more traditional identity, with a power-game and plenty of kicking.

But Erasmus also said the Boks wouldn’t stop attempting to play expansively with the ball, which prompted criticism in South Africa given the Wallabies pounced on several turnovers to score tries, notably the intercept tries from Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Tom Wright.

But in a sly dig at Schmidt and the Wallabies’ gameplan, Erasmus told South African media he believed a reactive and defensive game would not be enough to succeed at the next World Cup.

“I feel Australia are playing pretty much like we did in 2019, defend, defend, and if you make an error, they will pounce on that,” Erasmus said.

“We don’t believe that’s the way to win the next World Cup. We will never throw everything out; we’ve worked too hard over the last two or three years to get things in place. On Saturday, we just got overexcited, we felt that this is working and that we must put the foot on the accelerator, and we ran ourselves off our feet.

“We were chasing our own tail, and they were really good, but we can’t throw away all that hard work; it was one loss.”

Schmidt named his side on Thursday night (AEST) and only made injury-enforced changes to his starting line-up, with Fraser McReight named as the new skipper.

Asked about Erasmus’ critique, Schmidt said he wasn’t one to get “distracted too much by comments” but indicated he disagreed with the Boks coach’s view on how the Ellis Park game was won – both defensively and offensively.

“South Africa will commit to the way they play, and we’ll commit to the way we’re trying to play, and it doesn’t always work the way we’d like it to,” Schmidt said. “I felt that there were times that we engineered our own line breaks and some pretty positive play.

“And we didn’t have long periods of defence. We tended to concede ground pretty quickly, especially in that first 20 minutes, and would have liked the defence to go on a bit longer, but they had already got over the line at scored. So that didn’t work too well.

“Then we did profit from a few errors from the South Africans. We’re a little lucky that those errors occurred, and I’m sure that’s something that Rassie will have solved during the week.”

McReight said he felt “very privileged and honoured” to be named captain, and continue a tradition of star No.7s – including Michael Hooper, David Pocock, George Smith, Phil Waugh, David Wilson, Simon Poidevin and Tony Shaw – wearing the captain’s armband.

“First and foremost, I’d probably say I’d much rather be playing with Harry and for him to be leading us out. But I also feel very proud to be part of a special club,” McReight said on Friday.

“It’s obviously such a proud and rich tradition in history. Having played with Hoops – and I have spoken a lot to George and even Poey in recent years – It’s pretty cool. I’m just trying to do my bit. Obviously, as I said before, I’d much rather play with Harry and follow him. [But] it’s pretty cool being able to be captain after one of my best mates was captain.He’s been very helpful this week.

“I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m just trying to do my job and not change really anything. That’s also a bit of a power for me, being able to not worry about changing anything. I can just go out there and do what I’ve been doing, let the game drivers do what they do best and the leaders within the squad lead.”

with Reuters