{"id":493459,"date":"2025-10-12T11:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T11:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493459\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T11:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T11:32:11","slug":"scary-fact-has-england-greats-mightily-impressed-with-boks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493459\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Scary fact\u2019 has England greats \u2018mightily impressed\u2019 with Boks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retired England duo Ben Youngs and Dan Cole have delivered their assessment of the Rugby Championship title-winning Springboks \u2013 and it\u2019s a verdict full of envy about how Rassie Erasmus goes about his business.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The head coach led South Africa to back-to-back Championship titles last weekend<\/a> for the first time, and he is now laying plans for a November series that will see the 2019 and 2023 Rugby World Cup winners take on Japan, France, Italy, Ireland and Wales.<\/p>\n

Top of the pile in the run of recent results for the world\u2019s No.1 side was their record-shattering 43-10 demolition of the All Blacks in Wellington<\/a>, but Youngs and Coles have paid tribute to how Erasmus has rotated his team.<\/p>\n

Discussing the Erasmus way on the latest edition of For The Love Of Rugby<\/a>, Youngs was blown away by how the Springboks used the colossal number of 47 players across their six-match Rugby Championship campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch depth and versatility\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a figure that the likes of England could never imagine using in an international window for fear the level of performance would drastically drop off, and it means the Springboks<\/a> are well on the way towards having an enviable strength in depth for their 2027 World Cup title defence.<\/p>\n

Here is how the Youngs and Cole conversation about the level of the Springboks\u2019 depth unfolded:<\/p>\n

Youngs:<\/strong> \u201cWhat the Springboks also have is just a huge amount of depth and they have still got that creativity. (Cobus) Reinach has been terrific this tournament, age 35, just still doing it. But what is really smart is they are playing him with a really young 10, so he can help him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you have got all this experience of him, double World Cup winner, age 35, played around the world, great international nine, and he is helping a young 10 outside him [Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu]. Then you flip it to the midfield and the options they have there, and we have seen that, and then you start looking at the back three threats they have.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust look at the depth from a backline point of view \u2013 and that doesn\u2019t include the depth that they are showing and the flex they have in the forwards. It\u2019s mightily impressive where the Boks are going and how they continue to dominate in many ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say they are as dominant as that New Zealand team from 2011 to 2015 because that team rarely lost, and South Africa lost a couple this season. But when you look at it, they have lost because they are experimenting and changing the team and basically they are just adding more depth two years out from the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole:<\/strong> \u201cThat New Zealand team \u201911-15 was very settled, everyone peaked at the same time, whereas this Springbok team, it\u2019s not in transition, but it is building more depth behind it. That New Zealand team set out to win every game, whereas this South African team has set out to build depth and win every game. I am sure if they wanted, they could roll out the same guys and they would be as dominant as that Kiwi team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youngs:<\/strong> \u201cI feel with the Springboks at the moment as well, if you were to try and pick your 33-man squad now for the 2027 World Cup, there are some obvious choices but there are also some really, really difficult ones because there is such depth and versatility in terms of what they bring.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the front row, Thomas du Toit can play both sides. Then you look at back row and the options they have there, the locks that they have, and then you start looking at the back line, the midfielders, the back three, it\u2019s unbelievable. They used 47 players throughout the Rugby Championship. You\u2019d never see a team do that in the Six Nations ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and snubbed Springbok star as rampant Stormers nil Scarlets<\/a><\/p>\n

Cole:<\/strong> \u201cWhat\u2019s scary is the fact that you have got Reinach, who is 35, you have Handre (Pollard), you have got Faf de Klerk, so you have got guys who can play the traditional way. Then you have got your Sachas of this world who can come in and play up-tempo, speedy kind of way. Then you can mix and blend them both like they did last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many different options available to them depending on the opposition and how they want to play. Are they going to play ball control, move the ball around? Do they have to chase the game or just build a lead or sit on a lead? There is like a Plan A, Plan B and a Plan C, and it all comes from that dominant forward pack. Basically, they can do what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youngs:<\/strong> \u201cYou know the way northern hemisphere teams don\u2019t necessarily rotate to the same level as the southern hemisphere teams, certainly what South Africa does, why is that? Do you think Rassie has earned that right because he is an absolute elite coach and has had incredible success and they have a player pool? And do you think fans would be patient enough to see an England rotate lots during the autumn, or do you think there isn\u2019t a tolerance for that because if they don\u2019t win, then everything goes out the window?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole:<\/strong> \u201cGood question. Yes, Rassie has an ability to experiment. They lost against Australia in the first game, but there was no pressure on his job. Your nose would be out of joint as a fan, but there was no pressure on jobs or anything like that, which you can understand having won two World Cups. The depth of players allows you to rotate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the depth of the centres, they are four or five guys who would start for pretty much every other team in the world. Similarly at 10, you have got three different variants, but there are not many teams with three 10s or three nines who can all play international rugby and all get experience.<\/p>\n

All Blacks legend reveals the Rassie Erasmus ploy which Scott Robertson is copying<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are winning and have that ability, you can play a Pollard with a young nine because he can help manage him, and then the young nine, before he knows it, has got 20 caps. Or Reinach with a young 10 and he has 20 caps, and they are just winning and are part of the culture of winning. Similar with front row, they can bring in a young player knowing they can always fall back on who they have got.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I will say about the Rugby Championship, South Africa have to beat New Zealand twice, and that\u2019s a real tough challenge because they are so good, but against the other teams they can rotate. They can rotate against Australia and Argentina \u2013 I\u2019m not being horrible \u2013 whereas in England at the minute, you can\u2019t rotate against France, Scotland, Ireland because you are going to lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can maybe rotate against Italy and Wales but it\u2019s a bit, \u2018Do we want to do that because that will break momentum?\u2019 We have only got five games together and so it\u2019s a different choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd also South Africa have the floor of their performance because they are so settled in to what they do, dominant scrum, dominant maul, the guys in the backline can score, their floor is so high it allows them to change and adjust and try and go even higher whereas I think other teams, like if you rotate a few bodies out of the England team or the Irish team or Scottish team, the floor becomes a lot lower, the performance can be a lot lower and you don\u2019t really want to run that risk.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a great question, one that I probably haven\u2019t talked about, but I don\u2019t think England fans want to watch. If you lose by 40 points to South Africa or New Zealand in the autumn but it\u2019s \u2018we have rotated, we have played a load of 12-year-olds\u2019, England fans aren\u2019t going to accept it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be some rotation in the squads and in the games against maybe Fiji and Japan, those kind of games and if they play well you can bring them into those bigger games but as an England fan you want to watch England, you play New Zealand once you want to beat them, you play Australia once a year, you want to beat them. That is why it is done that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I would say about the depth, would you take a tough autumn? It\u2019s alright bringing young players in, but you have to build a system and win games. You look at Wales before and after the World Cup, they got rid of a lot of experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might say in four years\u2019 time these guys will be good and have 40, 50 caps, but they are probably scarred from losing so many games, whereas when you look at England, guys were drip-fed out of the team and young guys brought in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an evolution rather than a revolution, and that is what fans have to understand: you can bring in young guys, but you might lose every game. You might win but the chances are low, so do you want to drip-feed them in? It might not look revolutionary, but if you look at the England team from 2023 to 2027, it actually might be quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youngs:<\/strong> \u201cThat\u2019s why you look at Reinach, 35, with a young half-back playing outside him, Grant Williams for me is a terrific nine, electric, threatening and he is probably the future for 27, but it\u2019s just managing that. You don\u2019t get rid of everyone in the way you deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/strong>: How England greats would take on the \u2018unapologetically brilliant\u2019 Springboks scrum<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired England duo Ben Youngs and Dan Cole have delivered their assessment of the Rugby Championship title-winning Springboks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[6163,748,76145,393,4884,225,90462,33131,2196,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-493459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-ben-youngs","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-dan-cole","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-internationals","15":"tag-rugby-championship","16":"tag-south-africa","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115360980242388549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}