Rassie Erasmus insists the Springboks’ focus will be firmly on the present when they face Japan at Wembley on Saturday.
The Boks head into this weekend’s encounter as back-to-back world champions.It was a very different story at the 2015 World Cup in England as Japan’s Karne Hesketh crossed for a last-minute try to complete an extraordinary 34-32 comeback win against the Boks in a pool match that became known as the ‘The Brighton Miracle’.
Japan had not won a World Cup game since 1991 and yet the Cherry Blossoms, in current coach Eddie Jones’s first spell in charge, defied the odds against the then-twice world champions.
More recent history, however, favours South Africa, with Erasmus overseeing a 26-3 quarter-final win over hosts Japan during the Springboks’ 2019 World Cup triumph.
“I think I can remember where I was, 100% [in 2015],” Erasmus, who took charge of the Boks in 2017, told reporters after naming his side to play Japan on Tuesday. “I was in my bar, if you want to know exactly, at home watching the game.
“That will always be one of the iconic wins for them.”
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Erasmus had some idea of what the players in Brighton, on England’s south coast, were going through. He was a member of the first Springbok team to lose to Wales – a 29-19 defeat in Cardiff that marked the 1999 opening of the Millennium Stadium.
“I remember when we first lost to Wales, I was a player,” said 52-year-old former Springbok loose forward. “So those kind of things happen. We all have been part of history-making things.”
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And there was more unwanted history for Erasmus, as a coach, in August when the Wallabies turned a 22-point deficit into their first win at Ellis Park in 62 years.
“That wasn’t a nice feeling,” recalled Erasmus, although the Springboks still went on to secure back-to-back titles in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship for the first time despite that defeat.
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Erasmus, meanwhile, remains wary of Jones, a member of the Boks’ backroom staff when they won the 2007 World Cup – the second of their record four global titles – with Japan arriving in London following a narrow 19-15 loss to their coach’s native Australia in Tokyo last Saturday.
“I guess for Japan that [2015 match] will always be one of their greatest moments,” said Erasmus. “And obviously that will motivate them.
“But I don’t think we, at this stage, think about that. When we’re planning a game, we are analysing Japan and how well they played last weekend and how they’re building under Eddie and what they’re trying to do. And we always try to make plans to see how we can win the next match.
“But none of us can run away from how well they did in 2015.”
– AFP
Photo: Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images
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