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VIDEO: How Esterhuizen experiment 'saved' the Boks

By Angus Opperman
Sunday 13 Jul 2025

WATCH as Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus explains why the experiment of playing Andre Esterhuizen at flank against the Barbarians saved the Boks against Italy in Gqeberha.

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Erasmus is renowned for his innovative ideas regarding exploiting loopholes within the laws of the game to benefit the Boks in the best ways possible.

Think about the six-two and seven-one (forward-heavy) bench splits that were used to good effect in two respective World Cup Finals.

The Damian Willemse scrum, which was called from a mark during a World Cup quarterfinal against the host nation France and Cheslin Kolbe playing the hooker role against Australia by throwing the ball into the line-out.

Now, more recently, eyebrows were raised again when centre Esterhuizen came off the bench and slotted into the No.6 role against the Barbarians a fortnight ago.

That experiment proved to be fruitful on Saturday during the second Test against Italy when No.8 Jasper Wiese was red-carded for an alleged headbutt.

Read also:VIDEO: Rassie’s take on Wiese’s red card

Erasmus said that the fact that Esterhuizen did the job in the pack before saved the Boks from a testing situation.

The article continues below…

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“It saved us. I think it saved us in a big way because you’re not taking a back off and putting a loose forward on.

“We can actually now use Andre on our ball [at scrum time] and put him at flanker, and on Italy’s ball, we could put him at centre.

“So it really worked out well for us. And especially because it was Jasper, Evan [Roos] and Marco [van Staden] could slot in at No.8 and Andre [Esterhuizen] could fulfil the No.6 role.

“He knows how our line-outs work. So all in all, I must be honest, when we planned that in the beginning, I didn’t think it would help us with the red card, but it worked out nicely for us today [Saturday].”

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Main photo: Anton Geyser Media

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