Former England captain Will Carling has praised Rassie Erasmus for his honesty and accountability following the Springboks’ shock defeat to the Wallabies.
South Africa were stunned by Australia in Johannesburg, a performance described as ‘dog****’ by Erasmus, as they saw the visitors come back from a 22-point deficit to claim a 38-22 triumph at Ellis Park on Saturday.
Few expected Joe Schmidt’s men to get close to the Boks, particularly with the game taking place at altitude, but they produced one of their great performances to open the Rugby Championship with an outstanding win.
Springboks knocked off summit
It provided a hammer blow to the Springboks’ chances of retaining their title and also had a big impact in the World Rugby rankings, with the back-to-back world champions losing the number one spot.
The All Blacks are now at the summit while Erasmus’ men dropped an extra place to third as Ireland moved above them into second.
It is now a huge week for the four-time Rugby World Cup winners, but Carling expects them to get back on track after seeing the head coach’s immediate response to their defeat.
“Just listened to Rassie Erasmus’s post match press conference. What a breath of fresh air,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Open, brutally honest about performance and build up. Stating coaches as culpable as players, if not more so. No wonder he has created such a successful environment.”
South Africa have not had to deal with too many setbacks since Erasmus arrived 18 months prior to the 2019 World Cup.
While they had some mixed results after lifting the Webb Ellis Cup in Japan, none felt quite as shocking as the one at Ellis Park.
Equally, they came into the 2025 Rugby Championship off the back of an excellent 2024 and a solid mid-year series, which saw them comfortably defeat the Barbarians, Italy (twice) and Georgia.
But they will now have to search for an answer following Saturday’s shock defeat, with Erasmus not shying away from how poor they were in the final hour of that encounter.
Rassie ’embarrassed’
“This is one of the most embarrassing press conferences I’ve done in a long time,” the Springboks boss said after the match. “Not just because we were awful, but they were very good and credit to them.
“It was the same against Italy, we were 27-3 up and then we let teams back in. We can find excuses there but at the end of the day, they guts it out.