‘Scotland are not underdogs,’ says Erasmus ahead of Boks’ World Cup opener

SA Rugby’s director of rugby, Rassie Erasmus, has insisted that Scotland are not underdogs ahead of their opening Rugby World Cup clash with the Springboks in Marseille on Sunday.

The Boks and Scots are together in Pool B with Ireland, Tonga and Romania. With Ireland and South Africa ranked number one and two, respectively, they are expected to make it out of the pool. However, Scotland, who are ranked fifth, will want to have a say in that.

Favourites and underdogs

Sunday’s match at the Stade Vélodrome will see the Boks start the defence of the title they won in Japan four years ago, but Gregor Townsend’s team, who are undefeated in their last five Tests, will be no pushovers.

“We’ll have to be firing on all cylinders to make sure we get through this one,” Erasmus said ahead of this Sunday’s big match.

“Not to make anyone the favourites or the underdogs, I don’t believe in people making one the favourites and the other the underdog, I don’t think it changes anything.

“I think with Gregor (Townsend) there and the way Scotland have been building towards (the World Cup), I look at their squad and they have an average age of 28 and 38 Test matches. That’s a lekka squad,” he said.

SA link

Scotland have steadily been building over the last couple of years, playing some of the most enterprising rugby at Test level. Erasmus praised their mentor Townsend for being an astute coach and adding South African flavour to his team.

Among the players in the team who learned their rugby in South Africa are Pierre Schoeman, WP Nel, Duhan van der Merwe and Kyle Steyn.

“When Jacques and I were at Munster, we coached against Gregor (Townsend) at Glasgow in four games in one year,” he said.

“He’s a really classy coach who always has good plans. We know he’s a coach who supports players with ball in hand … so that’s always a threat, especially with the flyhalf they have in Finn (Russell).

“There are other close connections like Steve Tandy, their defence coach, who we coached against when he was at Ospreys. Pieter de Villiers is South African, and there’s a lot of South African players in their team that know our players well,” Erasmus said.

The World Cup starts Friday night when hosts France take on the All Blacks in Paris.