‘We don’t want to be a team the world loves’

The big, bad wolves in Springbok clothing.

South Africa took the air out of France’s World Cup balloon on Sunday night, popping the two-month long party with the obstinance that makes them such a great side.

This, however, was not the quintessential South African display of raw power.

Sure, there was strong scrummaging, excellent breakdown play and a couple of big mauls, but the world champions have moved their game on in the four years since they beat England in Yokohama.

They picked a 5/3 bench split, went for Manie Libbok at out-half and, even when he was replaced early by Handré Pollard, Willie le Roux also came in and injected pace into proceedings.

Fittingly, their smallest forward, Kwagga Smith, won the match-winning penalty – even if he appeared not to be supporting his own body weight before getting over the ball.

Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus said the change of style was born out of pragmatism rather than a desire to win over new fans and was rooted in November 2022 when the Springboks lost to France in Marseille.

"To be honest with you, and I am serious when I say this, I will never forget that last French game (November 2022)," he said.

“I tweeted a few tweets and a lot of people said it was controversial, but I can remember my caption there was, 'We will have to adapt and make things clearer for referees, we can't just rely on mauling, scrumming and close-contact work where it is very difficult for the referee to make the correct decision'. Because it's very dynamic and it's busy and there's a little bit of grey areas there.

"So, we had to adapt. Also, to try and score tries through more open, fluent, running rugby. And you could see in our try-scoring tally, there's a lot scored by our backs, more than our forwards.

"If you only rely on a certain aspect of the game which is very tough for the referee to referee and he gets two (decisions) wrong, but you are only relying on those three or four of five opportunities that you get, 50 per cent of your opportunities are gone. But if you fire shots in open play, general play from the top of lineouts or counter-attack, it's clearer decisions for the referee and easier to make.

"As a team, we don't want to be this wonderful playing rugby team that the whole world loves, but we do want to score tries."

Erasmus’ relationship with referees was sour for much of this World Cup cycle, but just at the right time, he seems to be in sync with the officials.

On Sunday, it was France who were left with bitter recriminations.

"As you know, we have changed our whole approach. I think I've mentioned it. Actually, this morning, we chatted to (former referee) Nigel Owens again. We conceded six penalties,” he said.

"Since we've changed our way, no matter if we are correct and the referees are wrong, respect must always be shown.

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"Our whole motto has been let's respect the referees. It works both ways. He's going to make mistakes, we're going to make mistakes. And the frustration we had in the past, and the lack of communication because of various things with Covid ... that is in the past. There's a nice protocol in place, it's easy to communicate to them.

"I wouldn't like to comment on what they (France) said about the referee (in the quarter-final). We are just working on accepting that there will be mistakes on both sides, which is something that we had to get right and we had to earn the respect back and I think it's slowly happening."

Unlike Ireland, who largely backed their starting XV through the tournament, South Africa have rotated heavily and used their bench early in games.

Erasmus believes that strategy will pay off against England on Saturday night.

"Our average player is 162 minutes in the World Cup,” he said.

"Matches before the World Cup, where we played Rugby Championship and we played Wales and New Zealand again,

"I know people got frustrated when we were chopping and changing and I am not saying I am right,(but) luckily, touch wood, up until this morning, we don't have any injuries from last night's game.

"I couldn't talk for other teams, but I do know us and the England team will definitely have a close match because their numbers of spreading the load is not so much higher than ours.

"If we think England is bad because people from outside say that they are not doing well... our reality is the truth, not the reality that people create outside our camp.

"We know from the Premiership, a lot of our players play against them and we know (Steve) Borthwick is an excellent coach, which he showed at Leicester and as a captain and a player for England.

"It will be a very tough test against a team that hasn't lost a game and more or less conceded the same amount of tries and racked up the same amount of points.

"If you look at England, they scored 19 tries and got 180 points and we scored 26 tries and also have 180 points. Then, if you look on the points conceded side, they've conceded six tries, we've conceded seven and they've conceded 63 points and we're 62. So, you can know how close this game (will be) - if you just look at stats, and I know stats don't always tell the whole picture."

The bookies aren’t convinced, with some offering a 14 point spread in the champions’ favour.

A final against New Zealand beckons for the team that crushed the host nations’ dreams and Erasmus is happy to play the bad guy.