VIDEO: Rassie left perplexed after disjointed Bok performance

VIDEO: Following a disjointed performance by the Springboks against a brave young Italian side, coach Rassie Erasmus pulled no punches on his assessment of the game of two halves.

The Springbok coach did not hide his disappointment and voiced it loud and clear as to where things went awry for the Boks.

The home side had set themselves up to dominate in the second half after tries by Jesse Kriel, Morne van den Berg (two), and Kurt-Lee Arendse.

They were dominating in the scrums and continuously had Italy on the back foot.

What should have happened in the second half was to send in the Bomb Squad to close out the game comfortably.

That just did not happen.

It left the Springbok coach scratching his head.

“It was a very frustrating game.

“When they [Italy] leave a couple of their big names home, you expect this down-in-the-gutters fight because the young guys don’t have anything to lose.

“We knew they would man up and they certainly manned up in most departments – scrums, mauling, defence, attack.

“No, it was a proper Test match,” Erasmus said, adding: “When we were 28-3 up, and we scored a try, and there was obstruction, and then we lost some momentum…

“It was a frustrating performance, to be honest.”

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Erasmus said the team had a good week of preparation going into this Test match, and although the Boks scored six tries and pulled off a win, he made it clear he was not happy, especially with the second half.

They had scored six tries to three, and the final score could be seen as a comfortable win, but it was not the type of performance one would expect from the World Champions against a very youthful Italian side.

“It was a hell of a lot of mistakes, and I would love to pinpoint what the reason for it was.

“Still glad that we won. I didn’t pick up in the week that this is how we were going to perform. But maybe that’s a sign that you must never think that you are set for the game.

“We as coaches must accept the blame. We thought we had had a great week of preparation, but obviously that was not the case.

“It’s all fixable, but yes, frustrating.”

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While he mostly talked about all the things that worry him as he looks ahead to the second Test against Italy next week in Gqeberha, there we some positives as well.

“The positives are that we won, that we scored six tries. Even with a maul that didn’t function. Even with the breakdown, that wasn’t great on attack.

“Even with a counterattack that wasn’t awesome.

“We have to understand what Italian team was put out here. It was an energetic, young bunch of guys.

“And we couldn’t quite break them.”