Five yellows and one red card in four Tests has Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus paaping about his team’s discipline ahead of this year’s Rugby Championship.
This comes after centre Andre Esterhuizen was red-carded and Kurt-Lee Arendse and Quan Horn both yellow-carded in Saturday’s 64-21 win over Portugal in Bloemfontein.
In the Boks’ 41-13 win over Wales in June, fullback Aphelele Fassi also got sin-binned for 10 minutes for dangerous play, while Arendse got his first yellow of the season in the first Test win (27-20) against Ireland at Loftus Versfeld.
Erasmus says of the result against Portugal: “I was happy with everything other than discipline – a red card and two yellows is not going to win you World Cups…”
Besides the swak discipline, Erasmus was impressed with how the Bok rookies performed as Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Phepsi Buthelezi, Quan Horn and Andre-Hugo Venter all scored on debut.
The coach adds: “Having seven debutants play with four of them scoring tries makes things interesting when it comes to selecting the squad for the Rugby Championship and the trip to Australia.
“I promised the whole squad that everyone would get a game today and at least 20 minutes on the field. The way they rewarded us for giving them that chance was really unbelievable. I’m very proud of them.”
Erasmus also had good good news on the injury front ahead of next month’s Rugby Championship tour of Australia, with hooker Malcolm Marx, prop Steven Kitshoff and flank Pieter-Steph du Toit all expected to return from injury to make the two-Test trip, while No.8 Jasper Wiese’s six-match ban is almost over.
Springboks are down to 14 men as Andre Esterhuizen's yellow card is upgraded to a red card, after this tackle 👇
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) July 20, 2024
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