It is hard to plan a game defensively against a totally different team full of speedsters who are unpredictable.
Yesterday morning the South African rugby coach Rassie Erasmus caught everyone off guard by naming his team for Saturday far earlier than expected. Teams have up to 48 hours to announce their teams before the next game and he did it 4 days early. This can play a psychological game on your opposition as the changes he made were rather big.
7 changes in a team that lost a game by only seven points many would call drastic and yet this is not the case and rather the opposite. Teams normally rotate one or two players which is normally de to an injury concern or niggle.
The next Rugby World Cup is 2027 and will be played in Australia so teams have 2 years (25 months) to find a settled squad that offers them depth and experience. This week the SA team will have an entire new back line with a mix of experience and youth with some players having never played in New Zealand before.
The only way one is going to find out if they can play within a pressure environment is by playing them and no games are bigger than playing New Zealand away on home soil. When I first saw the team selected for Saturday I was a little surprised, but having listened to the coach and his reasoning it is the right call.
Come 2027 there will be players left over from the last World Cup which the SA team won in 2023 but there will be many new faces and these players need game time to gain the experience required. The time to evolve the team is now and not next year as there are still another 5 international games to play this season.
Back in 2018 when Rassie took over the head coaching role no one gave him a chance of turning around the team so quickly let alone winning the World Cup in 2019. If anyone knows what they are doing it is him and no one will question his tactics or reasoning behind the decisions. Rassie has earned the right and respect having won back to back World Cups and has his eye on a 3rd. Winning two in a row is hard enough and now trying for a third many would call it impossible.
No other team is in a position to experiment like SA is doing having played 4 games having used 57 players this year already. A team is made up of 15 players so this is nearly 4 entire teams with the sole purpose of finding a squad of 36 for the 2027 World Cup. The other teams can only look on as they know the squad and team will only improve from here. This is showing the talent pool that is available and other teams will be concerned as they do not have this luxury.
This weekend will be interesting to see if this new look team can pull off a win and many are not betting against this. I have my doubts as I believe it is still too soon, but am happily to be proved wrong. Change is hard and this is forced change knowing the sooner you change the better it is for everyone involved.