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Wiese the main concern as Boks near end of this phase

football12 July 2025 20:40| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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Jasper Wiese © Gallo Images

With several boxes ticked in their 45-0 whitewash of Italy in the second test in Gqeberha, the possible ramifications of the red card shown to No 8 Jasper Wiese is the one concern for the Springboks as they head towards the last week of this opening phase of the international season.

Wiese was sent from the field by referee Andrew Brace after 22 minutes following what looked like a head-butt from Wiese during an altercation with some of the Italian players.

The evidence was conclusive enough for the Irish referee not to refer the incident to the bunker, so the Boks did well to win so comprehensively when they were down to 14 men for almost an hour.

Indeed, they were down to 10 men at an early stage of the second half, something that robbed them of a bit of momentum after they had gone to the halftime break 45-0 up before they regained it in the final quarter.

While the Boks could get away with having Wiese off the field against Italy, and he probably wasn’t due to play next week’s game against Georgia in Nelspruit anyway, there will be concern over the potential for him to incur a suspension long enough to impact on his availability for the first two Castle Lager Rugby Championship matches against Australia and even possibly the seismic clash with the All Blacks in Auckland that follows those games.

Erasmus chose his words carefully at the post-match press conference at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium because he did not want to say anything that might negatively impact on Wiese’s chances of defending himself at the disciplinary hearing he will face sometime next week.

“I’m not able to say it was right or wrong or how bad it was,” he said.

“Jasper must now handle that with our support. He is just so committed and passionate about the team, and it would have been wonderful for him to play in this game with his brother (Cobus), which didn’t now happen (because Cobus came on for his debut in the second half when Jasper was not on the field.

“It’s sad because he’s not a guy that goes out there to do those kinds of things, but I don’t want to say anything here that can make it better or worse because I’m not 100 per cent sure what is the best way to take it forward.”

ROOS BROUGHT IMPACT

Fortunately for Erasmus, Evan Roos did make a good impact when he came on to be part of an undermanned pack in the second half, as did Wiese’s brother Cobus, who came on at lock in his debut appearance for his country.

But apart from Roos, and potentially Siya Kolisi, who has been used off the back of the scrum by Sharks coach John Plumtree in recent times, the Boks are a bit thin now in the position as several of the other No 8s are out injured.

Erasmus said that it was the sending off of Wiese that prompted his decision to take loosehead prop Thomas du Toit off the field and replace him with Ox Nche around the half hour mark.

He said the fact Du Toit was not a specialist loosehead made him potentially vulnerable in a situation where it was seven forwards against eight.

“We had seven men against eight men in the scrum from there on and we felt that we needed a specialist loosehead while Thomas is more of a tighthead these days, so it was a tactical change,” he explained.

SATISFIED WITH PERFORMANCE

After the frustration of the previous week’s second half struggle, the Springboks were able to emerge from their third game, and second test, of the season in a far more satisfied mood than was the case after Pretoria.


It was a game where the Boks successfully turned around some of the areas where they struggled seven days earlier, including the breakdowns and the lineouts.

And with Italy not registering a solitary point in the game, it was clearly also not a day where there were any question marks over the defence.

Manie Libbok impressed and did what was expected of him, namely generate the wide play that stretched the Italy defence with his excellent passing game, in his first start of the new international season.

And Grant Williams provided impressive zip at scrumhalf as he shook off his period of inaction because of a troublesome neck injury with a five-star performance that was capped by the first try that the Boks scored.

Canan Moodie was also excellent at outside centre, while young Sharks player Ethan Hooker put in some big tackle hits when he came on as his replacement in the midfield.

Ruan Nortje was good and Salmaan Moerat led the team well, while Pieter-Steph du Toit sounded a reminder of why he has been a two time winner of the World Rugby Player of the Year award.

His forceful play was one of the reasons the Boks were much better at the breakdowns this week.

LEARNED FROM LAST WEEK

Erasmus though didn’t want to get too carried away with the performance other than to say that the Boks are in a good space as they head into the final match of this phase against Georgia in Nelspruit next weekend.

“Last week we didn’t know a lot of the Italian players because we hadn’t played against a lot of them, so they were tough to analyse,” he said.

“After one game the older guys could transfer a lot of knowledge to the younger guys who played this week, and they could also point out where we thought their weaknesses were. But to keep them to nil with 13 players on the field was pretty cool. In two games it’s 87-24 for us in this series and 13 tries to three and they were a team that pushed Ireland very close. So, we’re very happy.”

It was a day of innovation from Erasmus and predictably he was asked at the post- match press conference about the deliberate attempt to start the game with a scrum by not letting the kick-off travel the required distance, and also the lineout maul type plays set up in general play that led to two of the seven tries.

“We tried a few things and sometimes those things work and sometimes they don’t. People tend to focus on the things that do work and not those that don’t but you have to take it on the chin if they don’t work,” said Erasmus.

He said he’d picked up on the maul idea from something that the schools team Paul Roos did while the kick-off ploy was, as it was clearly intended to be, an attempt to get into the Italian scrum right at the start of the game.

It didn’t work for the Boks as the Italians were awarded a scrum free kick.

Erasmus said that coaches would always be on the lookout for new things to try but now that they’ve been tried in a game there would be a limited number of times they could be repeated.

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