Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus refused to blame his side’s loss against the Wallabies on Sunday on match-day disruptions, but rather pointed a finger at themselves for the result.
Despite playing against 11 men after a flurry of yellow cards for infringements ranging from head contact to offside, the world champions left themselves with too much to do in the final 10 minutes of the contest and lost 42-38 in Perth, succumbing to only their second defeat this season.
Erasmus made 13 changes to the starting side and it was always going to be difficult to find proper cohesion. But given the way they squandered opportunities in the first half and allowed the Wallabies to dictate terms, they only have themselves to blame for the loss.
The Bok coach acknowledged their errors even though external factors, such as a communication breakdown between the match officials, disrupted the clash.
Referee Andrea Piardi had no communication with his TMO and had to rely on a mobile phone call to receive messages from him. That meant play went on for a while after certain incidents before the TMO stepped in to convey them to the referee. That ate up valuable time, especially in the second half of the clash.
“I’ve been involved in games where the comms were down, but maybe not to this extent,” Erasmus said in his post-match press conference.
“But I guess for the neutral it must have been a really exciting game to watch; I guess for Australia it must be awesome. We lost in a Springbok jersey against the Wallabies. But with all the disruptions, we have nobody else to blame but ourselves for this result.
“I know the technology failed a bit, the clock kept on running at times and didn’t stop, but that didn’t have an influence on how we played. We control how we play, and we didn’t play well enough today to beat Australia.”
Captain André Esterhuizen was equally disappointed, but proud of the fight they showed towards the end.
The Springboks came back from 42-17 down to come within a try of snatching the game at the death. The final 10 minutes were frantic and the world champions showed their character; however, they left themselves too much to do with too little time left on the clock.
An obstructive running line between him and replacement fullback Quan Horn brought a penalty against the Boks and an end to the match as they looked to launch one final attack in search of a winning try.
“It was pretty intense,” Esterhuizen said about the final minutes.
“At one stage, we were concentrating on getting one try, then getting another, and taking it step by step. But like we said, we should never have been in that situation.
"We put ourselves there. I think the fans and people who watched really enjoyed it, but we should be better and not get into those situations.”