Rassie Erasmus expects England to bring a sense of frustration to their match against South Africa on Saturday and labelled them “desperate” for a win after two defeats from two in their autumn campaign.
Erasmus’s world champions returned to the world No 1 ranking with a patchy 32-15 victory over Scotland on Sunday as they kicked off their own run of Tests in the northern hemisphere. They now travel to Twickenham to take on Steve Borthwick’s side, who are reeling after suffering two late losses to New Zealand and Australia, 24-22 and 42-37, respectively, having expected to win both on home soil.
“Twickenham will be a different challenge,” Erasmus said. “That’s 80,000 people, that’s a different kind of pressure. England will be very desperate to win. They almost beat New Zealand, they almost beat Australia. It’s going to be a very, very tough game.”
Saturday will be South Africa’s first match against England since their dramatic 16-15 World Cup semi-final win in France last year when their opponents had led for most of the match. Losing tight games late on has since become a bad habit for Borthwick’s team.
In further ominous news for the hosts, who have lost Tom Curry and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso from their squad as a result of injury, the Springboks deliberately employed a 7-1 bench split in Edinburgh in order to keep their famed forwards as fresh as possible, with late replacements accounting for both England’s World Cup defeats against South Africa in 2019 and 2023.
“We rested the two packs for reasons. We want the team to be fresh with the six-day turnaround,” Erasmus added.
