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Eramus wants Boks to turn anger and hurt on All Blacks
Reuters • August 25th, 2026 6:49 am
South Africa are hurting after their 33-16 defeat by New Zealand at Ellis Park, Johannesburg | Photo: AP
South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus wants his team to turn the hurt of their weekend defeat by New Zealand into fuel to get themselves back into contention in the four-Test series.
The Springboks lost their No.1 world ranking when the All Blacks won the opening test 33-16 at Ellis Park on Sunday (NZ Time), outscoring their hosts five tries to one as they saw off South Africa's efforts to muscle them into submission.
"One could see the hurt on everyone's faces after Saturday's match, and we know what we have to do to bounce back strongly this week," Erasmus said as he announced the line-up for the second Test in Cape Town on Saturday.
"There were a handful of positives and negatives last week, but the main thing that let us down was that we created so many chances, but mistakes at crucial times cost us.
"We did stupid things", said South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus of his team, coaches and himself | Photo: AP
"We are angry with each other. The coaches did and said stupid things. The players did stupid things on the pitch," added Erasmus.
"Me personally, I made wrong calls on some of the tactics we wanted to try and do inside their 22. It didn't work and that's on me."
Erasmus went back to naming his side early, but kept the All Blacks guessing by putting flanker Siya Kolisi back in the side if the inspirational captain proves his fitness. If not, Paul de Villiers will stay in the starting line-up.
"Paul played well on Saturday, and there's no reason why we should keep him out, but Siya is our captain," the coach said.
"Siya has got some strengths, one of them being the attacking breakdown, he's really good at sorting that out for us, which was the area we struggled with.
"There were lots of times that we played badly, not because they did anything illegal, but we couldn't get the ball away out of the breakdown when we were in really good attacking positions. Siya's really good at that," Erasmus added.
Springboks matchday 23 to play All Blacks
1. Ox Nche, 2. Malcolm Marx, 3. Wilco Louw, 4. Eben Etzebeth, 5. Ruan Nortje, 6. Siya Kolisi/Paul de Villiers, 7. Pieter-Steph du Toit, 8. Jasper Wiese, 9. Cobus Reinach, 10. Handre Pollard, 11. Ethan Hooker, 12. Damian de Allende, 13. Jesse Kriel, 14. Kurt-Lee Arendse, 15. Damian Willemse.
Bench: 16. Deon Fourie, 17. Gerhard Steenekamp, 18. Thomas du Toit, 19. Lood de Jager, 20. Andre Esterhuizen, 21. Cameron Hanekom, 22. Morne van den Berg, 23. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
The Nightmare on Bok Street | Mondays with McHardy
