Rassie alludes to selection consistency come Saturday

Rassie Erasmus is unlikely to make many changes to his match day squad for Saturday, in an effort to not lose winning momentum.

Erasmus spoke of the “balancing act” he faced in terms of selection. While he will be wanting to build depth for the next year’s World Cup, he also faces the statistic of just a 50% win ratio (6 from 12) this year and will want to be trying to build winning momentum leading into next year.

While the Boks will be forcedly without the services of eighthman Warren Whiteley and scrum half Faf De Klerk for Saturday, it appears Erasmus is unlikely to make many other changes.

“When you lose a match you have to pick up momentum again and I think that’s the balancing act we faced when we lost to England,” Erasmus said.

“We like to make changes when we’re winning and not when we’re losing. That’s why we got Faf (De Klerk) and more of the experienced guys back.”

The inclusion of these six overseas based players saw the Springboks back to winning ways in a tense 29-26 last minute victory over France last weekend.

Erasmus explained further:

“The guys who are in the European cycle like Faf, Francois Louw and Vincent Koch are as fresh as the guys they are playing against where we (SA players) are at the end of our season,” he said.

“That helped a lot last week in terms of getting back in those last few minutes.

“We want to definitely try and give guys chances but it is a balancing act about not losing momentum again.”