Bok boss Rassie proud of 50-plus squad effort over 2024 season

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus was immensely proud of a squad effort built by using over 50 players during a fantastic season that closed with a powerful 45-12 win over Wales in Cardiff on Saturday night.

The Boks secured a clean sweep on their end-of-year-tour to the UK, beating Scotland 32-15 and England 29-20, before cruising to victory over Wales in a game that could have seen an even more lopsided scoreline if they had taken their chances.

In all it closed out a season that saw them win 11 out of 13 games, which included drawing their Incoming Series against Ireland, and powering to the Rugby Championship title, while both their losses were one-point results that could have gone the other way.

Amazing depth

The Bok management will also be mightily pleased with the amazing depth built up over their international campaign, with an incredible 51 players featuring for the team over their 13 matches.

Erasmus admitted that he had some reservations about the way things would go this year, especially among some of the more senior players, but was extremely happy with how things turned out in the end.

“It is obviously nice what the team has achieved (winning 11 from 13, Rugby Championship and UK clean sweep). But my worry at the start of the season when I planned things out, was how the players will take the swapping in and out and building (towards the future),” explained Erasmus.

“That they are not (a squad of) 25 or 26 players but 50-plus. I didn’t know if the senior guys would understand that they would probably make their careers longer if they don’t play every single Test match every week and give the younger guys a chance.

“We actually said, ‘Those who don’t want to buy into this, unfortunately you can’t be part of the group’. So these results mean a lot.”

New coaches

Erasmus was also happy with the way new attack coach Tony Brown and defence coach Jerry Flannery slotted into the system.

He also made mention of how the various Bok captains over the season, which included Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth and Salmaan Moerat, handled bringing the players together despite constant changes being made to the team for almost every match.

“I think for us having a new attack and defence coach after the World Cup, the way the players adapted to that and how those coaches slotted into our management team has been superb,” said Erasmus.

It is nice to have built so much depth over the season. But it is more important how those players slotted in and how we didn’t lose a lot of momentum from that, which would normally be the case.

“I think we lacked rhythm at times (because of that), but Siya and all the guys who captained the team over the year, how they pulled the team together (in those games) was really important.”