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Rassie Erasmus allayed fears of Salmaan Moerat’s late withdrawal ahead of South Africa’s emphatic 66-7 Nations Championship win over Italy, revealing that the Springbok skipper was suffering from back spasms before kick-off in Turin.
Moerat was initially named to start at the Allianz Stadium but was dropped from the squad for the match after experiencing discomfort in the warm-up, prompting a change that saw Lood de Jager promoted to the starting XV and Franco Mostert taking a place on the bench.
“Salman had a little cramp in his back on Thursday, but we thought it would clear up,” Erasmus explained later.
“He looked good in captain’s training, but unfortunately in the warm-up he got more back spasms, so hopefully it’s not too serious.
“He’s the only casualty we have from the game. I don’t think there are any other serious injuries.”
As the world champions ran in nine tries and led 45-0 at the break, Erasmus admitted the display was not without flaws as attention now turns to the looming clashes France and Ireland.
“It’s almost impossible to put 80 minutes together at 100%,” he said.
“Obviously we’re not happy with the second half. We scored 45 points in the first half and the final score was 66, so we got 21 more points in the second half.
“Italy we are a proud team, and despite being 45 points down, they started to run from everywhere, and we also made some changes that we wanted to see and with that, we lost a little bit of rhythm.
“But when you win 66-7, I don’t think you can start causing problems in the second half. It wasn’t perfect, but it was right.”
Erasmus, however, was quick to point out that a repeat performance will not be enough against the Springboks’ next two opponents.
“However, we have to play much better than this if we are to be competitive against France and Ireland.
“But it’s nice to know that after a month apart, the boys came together and played like that.”
One area that particularly pleased the Bok boss was his side’s discipline.
“I think we only conceded one penalty in the first half, and about five penalties and five turnovers in the game, which is pretty disciplined, although the second half was a bit soft.”
Erasmus also credited continuity within the squad for South Africa’s ability to continue to produce polished performances despite personnel changes.
“The biggest thing is that we’ve been together for eight years and we’re slowly bringing in guys like Ethan (Hooker), ‘Krappie’ (Morne van den Berg), Sacha (Feinberg-Mngomezulu), Ruan (Nortje), Cameron (Hanekom), Jan-Hendrik (Wessels) and Tomas is coming back with us now.
“So we’ve been able to bring people in here and there, and when you go to a game like this and pick a team that’s fit and ready for the match, and everyone’s calm and understands the system because we’ve been training them for a while, it’s a pleasure.”
