Rassie Erasmus on criticism that Springboks are playing a boring style of rugby

Rassie Erasmus has commented on the criticism the Springboks are playing a boring style of rugby.

Speaking at a press conference at the team hotel in Tokyo Bay on Tuesday, the head coach said:

“If one understands where we’ve been coming from – being number six, seven or eight in the world – we’ve got certain challenges, and one of them was always to redeem ourselves and become a power again in world rugby, and try to get to number one and two.

“By doing that, you have to have some building blocks in place, and we’ve followed a certain route and played according to the stats, and the way the game is being refereed currently. And what gives you good results in the short term and on the scoreboard.

“So, we certainly accept that there are some things in the game that we have to improve, and we take it on the chin.

“But we feel that we have put ourselves in a position to maybe win the World Cup, and we are in the final. Yes, we accept the criticism, but we are also happy that we are in the position to compete for a World Cup final, which is where we ultimately want to be.”

On any change in preparing for the final:

“The big thing is that we’ve got only 160 minutes of training – 60 minutes of team training, 40-60 minutes of split training between the forwards and backs. So, we’ve got two days of training sessions, so not a lot will change.

“I guess you can expect very much the same from us on Saturday.”

On how South Africa will approach England:
“The way we’ve played against different teams so far prior to and during the World Cup is definitely varied. We played against Japan, who is a wonderful attacking team who ran both Ireland and Scotland off their feet.

“We managed to contain them in a certain way, and they only scored one try in two test matches against us. We managed to score quite a few tries against them with a certain tactic.

“Then again, we played New Zealand – who was No.1 in the world and scored two tries in four minutes against us. But after that, they couldn’t score another try.

“We’ve played England four times in the last two years, and score is 2-2. The last test match that we played was a very close test at Twickenham. I know both teams have definitely improved since then."