LONDON : South Africa’s experience proved key in helping them to victory over England at Twickenham on Saturday, coach Rassie Erasmus said as his side overcame an error-filled performance to edge their hosts.
“It was by no means comfortable although we had a cushion in the last minutes,” he told a press conference after the 29-20 win.
South Africa held out despite going down to 14 near the end of the contest, showing defensive resilience which had the Springbok coach smiling despite an unusually high number of penalties conceded.
“You could probably say the score didn’t reflect how close the game was. There was a penalty miss here and there and a try disallowed for both sides.
“I guess when you play at Twickenham and say you are not happy with the performance and beating them by nine points, that will be arrogant. It wasn’t fantastic but we are content that we could beat them.”
Erasmus felt the experience of his side, filled with double World Cup winners, proved decisive.
“The team we put out there played a lot together in important games. Most played together in the last Rugby Championship match against Argentina.”
South Africa won that tournament in September and started their three-test tour of Britain with success over Scotland at Murrayfield last weekend.
It was lot more nervy for their supporters, however, on Saturday, especially after prop Gerhard Steenekamp was sent to the sin bin some 12 minutes from time, leaving the Boks to defend desperately as they denied England opportunity to use their one-man advantage.
“Yellow cards are not something to be proud of but hanging in there while we have a card definitely takes some character and good planning from the other coaches and guys running specific areas of the game … be it defence, lineouts or scrum,” Erasmus said.
He also had some advice for his England counterpart Steve Borthwick, whose side have now lost five matches in a row.
“We have been there. What you normally do then is fall back on what you know as a coach and what you know works.”
England lost to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa over the last three weekends.
“But they took all of them, close to the last 10 minutes,” added Erasmus.
“We found it tough to break them down. It was difficult.”
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town)
