Erasmus wants Springboks to turn hurt into heat after opening loss

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 24 : South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus wants his team to turn the hurt of their weekend defeat by New Zealand into fuel to get themselves back into contention in the four-test series.

The Springboks lost their top world ranking when New Zealand won the opening test 33-16 at Ellis Park on Saturday, outscoring their hosts five tries to one as they saw off South Africa’s efforts to muscle them into submission.

The world champions had been favourites before the start of the first test of the Kiwis’ eight-match tour.

"One could see the hurt on everyone’s faces after Saturday’s match, and we know what we have to do to bounce back strongly this week," Erasmus said as he announced the line-up for the second test in Cape Town on Saturday.

"There were a handful of positives and negatives last week, but the main thing that let us down was that we created so many chances, but mistakes at crucial times cost us," Erasmus told reporters on Monday.

"We are angry with each other. The coaches did and said stupid things. The players did stupid things on the pitch," added Erasmus.

"Me personally, I made wrong calls on some of the tactics we wanted to try and do inside their 22. It didn’t work and that’s on me."

Erasmus went back to naming his side early, but kept the All Blacks guessing by putting flanker Siya Kolisi back in the side if the inspirational captain proves his fitness. If not, Paul de Villiers will stay in the starting line-up.

"Paul played well on Saturday, and there’s no reason why we should keep him out, but Siya is our captain," the coach said.

"Siya has got some strengths, one of them being the attacking breakdown, he’s really good at sorting that out for us, which was the area we struggled with.

"There were lots of times that we played badly, not because they did anything illegal, but we couldn’t get the ball away out of the breakdown when we were in really good attacking positions. Siya’s really good at that," Erasmus added.

(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Ed Osmond)