Rassie Erasmus has labelled his centre Canan Moodie “lucky” following his knock-on in the first half of South Africa’s 29-27 victory over Argentina at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium on Saturday.
Moodie, who had already received a yellow card for a high tackle just minutes into the match, flew out the line later in the first half and knocked the ball on. The infringement, however, was only deemed to be accidental, rather than deliberate, although the 22-year-old barely came close to claiming the ball.
After the match, where the Springboks retained the Rugby Championship on points difference, Erasmus conceded that if he were his counterpart, Felipe Contepomi, he would have deemed the knock-on worthy of another yellow, something that many online did.
To add insult to injury, what could have been a yellow card was only a scrum, which, in the context of the match, was a dangerous place to be for the Pumas.
Match Summary 
This was all part of a performance the head coach was not overly pleased with, as the Boks, who trailed 13-10 at the break, looked as though they were about to pull away in the second half only to let the Pumas back into the match with some sloppy play.
Then again, he said “you’d rather learn while you’re winning than while you’re losing.”
“At half time, you could see the guys were a little bit tired, Argentina came out really playing well and loosening the game up,” Erasmus said.
“We missed a few tackles, and the yellow card. Canan was lucky with the one that he tapped back, it was almost two yellow cards there. If I was Felipe, I would have said one was maybe a red card and the one he was trying to reach might have been more than a yellow. I’m not blaming the referee, I’m just saying it was close calls that could have changed the game even more.
“We always knew that Argentina have got massive fight in them. They take you to the gutters and we had to swim there in the gutters with them. I know they scored a try at the end, but when Manie didn’t kick the ball out, we were going for our third try (more than Argentina), then we would have won the Championship without net points.
“But we’re proud that we did beat New Zealand there, who were our rivals at the end. Overall, happy with win but definitely not satisfied with our performance, but you’d rather learn while you’re winning than while you’re losing. So we’ll take it, we’re top of the World Rugby log now, but we’re under no illusions how tough the end of year tour will be.”