VIDEO: Baffled Erasmus wonders how to coach locks to go lower

VIDEO: Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus looked visibly deflated as he wrestled with yet another red card to a Springbok lock following their 32–14 victory over Italy.

If the Springboks had thought it would be a tough outing against a charged-up Azzurri side in very cold and wet conditions, they had another thing coming.

When Franco Mostert got shown a red card in the 11th minute of the game following his tackle on Italy’s Paolo Garbisi, the Springbok coaching staff once more had to scramble to make plans, just like last week against France.

Referee James Doleman and his assistants Ben O’Keeffe and Jérémy Rozier reviewed the tackle and made the call that Mostert was always illegal, which then removed any mitigation and resulted in Mostert’s permanent sending off.

Erasmus was baffled and revealed that calls on the referee microphone during the match were so intermittent that the Springbok coaches had to switch it off, which would mean the Springboks were always the topic of discussion.

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“It is what it is; it doesn’t matter what I say, it won’t make a difference.

“I’m just glad we had Ben O’Keefe on the one AR [assistant referee] side and a referee who was experienced, because obviously we’ve got the referee microphone on and all the noise that was coming from there [was so intense], it was difficult just to follow the match,” Erasmus told reporters at the post-match press conference.

“So we just put the microphone off. And I’m not saying this in a negative way; it was just very busy with a lot of calls made from there.

“I always thought we wanted to get to 20-minute red cards and have a re-check on that. I thought that was the way to go – it’s not my place to talk about it.

“But for a captain like him [pointing to Siya Kolisi], twice in a week to have to suffer for us to win because of a call. I’m not saying the referee made the wrong call, but I definitely saw a lot of other shots in the game.

“The first tackle he [Kolisi] took was right against the head. It’s tough, I’m not saying anybody is wrong.

“I just thought the balance on calling head shots was not as equal,” Erasmus added.

It was evident that he was unclear about the way forward in terms of coaching the tackle situation.

“But I am not criticising. When we review the game, we might come to a different conclusion and see that we were wrong most of the time.

“And then we have to go and rectify it.

“Losing two No.5 locks in two games for not going lower than they can go. It’s tough to understand.

“We don’t know how to coach guys differently to go lower. We are really in a bit of a fix for a two-metre guy and a 2.06m guy to go lower than a guy on his knee.

“It’s tough. They were also down to 14 men, but I thought it was tougher than last week.”

Kolisi was asked how the team manages to stay so resilient in the face of adversity and just get on with the job at hand for two weeks in a row, finishing out games with 14 players.

“We went through it last week, and this week we went through the same thing again.

“So we made plans as in the previous game, because we know these things happen. There are always stumbles along the way, and that’s what I am grateful for from our coaching staff.

“They are always prepared for any scenario. But it doesn’t make it easy on us. We can talk about sacrificing for the team. It’s not easy,” he said, adding, “It’s not easy for Sous [Franco Mostert] – we can see the hurt in his eyes.

“I really love the way this team can always stand up and fight. We always say, whatever happens in those four lines, we can still go as hard as we can and control what we can control.”