Front row switcheroo wasn’t planned beforehand, says Bok coach Rassie
· Citizen
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus said the team’s surprise sudden front row switch wasn’t planned in advance, after the Boks levelled Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series with a 33-26 win over the All Blacks at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
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On Monday Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw were named as the starting front row, but 45 minutes before the game on Saturday when the team sheet was released, it showed the bench front row of Gerhard Steenekamp, Deon Fourie and Thomas du Toit all of a sudden starting.
It seemed to pay off well, as they performed well in the lineouts, while the scrums were solid in the first half, with the Boks taking a 24-14 lead into the halftime break and after the game Erasmus explained that the change came late due to the change in weather conditions.
“We thought it was going to be wet. That’s why we picked the front row we did. The predictions the whole week were that it was going to be wet and we thought we would need our heavier front row for the first half of the game,” explained Erasmus.
“We were always going to use two front rows. But then closer to the game the weather dried up, so we decided to make a change and put our lighter front row on, who would be better on the dry field.”
Early changes
Steenekamp and Fourie, who were both decent, were replaced in the 36th minute by Nche and Marx, who promptly won a scrum penalty with Du Toit, who played on until the 57th minute when he came off for Louw.
“Deon Fourie is 39 years old, he’s played 65 minutes (for the Stormers) against the All Blacks in six weeks, so he was going to get tired. You could see he even missed a tackle in the lead up to one of their tries. But he was wonderful and brought so much to the team.
“Then we have Ox, who prior to the previous game (first Test), had only played eight minutes this season. We gave him 45 minutes (at Ellis Park), and we wanted to give him similar time because he didn’t start and get to 55 minutes which is what we wanted.
“So this wasn’t decided beforehand. If the guys stay productive on the field and kept doing their jobs, then we pull it back and we do it (replace them) when they are not productive in our opinion anymore.”
With the series now locked at one-all the Boks and All Blacks head back to Joburg for the third Test, followed by the fourth and final match in the USA.