South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus praised individual performances after beating Australia but sees room for improvement. The Springboks kicked off their Rugby Championship campaign with a 35-17 victory over Australia at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Saturday.
Erasmus watched his men run in five tries as they look to build some momentum ahead of the World Cup in Japan. The 46-year-old felt some individuals took their opportunity to impress but insists they still have plenty of work to do if they are going to seriously challenge at the showpiece event.
“A few guys certainly put their hands up for Rugby World Cup selection and although there was some rustiness and all our combinations weren’t settled, we are still happy with the win,” said Erasmus.
“At times we were frustrated with how things went, and we were also lucky as they had a try disallowed for a forward pass and lost the ball over the line.
“The same happened in some Tests last year – some you win, some you lose, but we’ll take it and say ‘thanks’, but we’re under no illusions that this was far from a world class performance. So the biggest positive from the Test was probably individual performances.
“From a team performance perspective, this isn’t how we want to play, quality wise, and we’re aware of that. They had our number in the air and we’ll have to look at that, there are a lot of areas we can improve on.”
