Hooker, flyhalf and scrumhalf are areas he wants to test depth.
I wonder if Willie Leroux will get a shot at 10. If Jantjies is not given a game, then he is not part of the world cup plans- other than a backup.
Speaking at the Springbok Experience, which is the South African rugby museum at the V and A Waterfront, at the start of the build-up week to the final test of a series that the Boks have already won, Erasmus said that losing was not on the agenda this weekend.
“We have done well to win the series but we don’t want to lose the last test and thus end it on a negative,” said Erasmus.
“That is our motivation. Obviously winning 3-0 will be nice, but our objective is to make sure we win the next test and then take confidence into our break before we start the Rugby Championship. We have picked up some momentum and we don’t want to lose that.”
Erasmus said he definitely wouldn’t be sticking with the same team that won in Bloemfontein even though he was happy with that performance and felt every player had contributed.
“We won’t make changes for the sake of making changes but we do need to try things in the build-up to the World Cup. There won’t be too many changes because we do want to win and there are some combinations that need to build experience of playing together but we will make four to five changes,” he said.
Cape Town has been wet over the past two days and it is going to be a wet week building up to what could be a wet weather game on Saturday. Erasmus said that as well as pursuing the objective of building depth, he would select around the need to have the right players for the conditions.
“At the moment it seems there is definitely going to be wet weather on Saturday so we may have to change a few things around that. This whole week is likely to be pretty wet so we need to plan accordingly,” said the coach.
“But that does not mean we going to go completely conservative. There were terrible conditions in Washington when we played against Wales and it was an appalling game to watch. We will plan to have more pace on the game and be more adventurous than we were then.
“You also never know with Cape Town. Having played here and coached here I know that Newlands drains very quickly and this is a city where on a rainy day where you can have an hour of sunshine and suddenly you have a dry weather game.”
There are no significant injury concerns for the Boks heading into the last match although RG Snyman did pick up a slight rib injury in Bloemfontein.
“RG was the only injury but I think he is okay,” said Erasmus.
Listening to Erasmus speak, it became apparent that if there are changes at the weekend they may well be at halfback and hooker.
“No 9, No 10 and hooker are the areas you want to be sure, where you want to have two or three guys who are very capable at the World Cup.”
