Rassie Erasmus issues Twitter mea culpa after Boks humbling

Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus took to Twitter to shoulder the blame for his team's 35-20 defeat against the All Blacks in Auckland. The Boks, who had been riding high after a dominant victory over Eddie Jones' Wallabies just a week ago, were brought back down to earth in a tough encounter at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland.

The match started on a disastrous note for the Springboks, as they conceded 17 points within the first 15 minutes. Despite mounting a spirited comeback in the second half, outscoring their opponents 17-15, the South Africans fell short in their bid to maintain an undefeated record in the competition.

Recognizing the flaws in their coaching approach, Erasmus publicly acknowledged the coaching team's errors in a humble tweet. He congratulated the All Blacks on their "unstoppable" performance and expressed gratitude for the unwavering support received from fans.

"Congrats to the All Blacks they were unstoppable in those 1st 20min. We certainly made some errors as a coaching team! Thanks for all the support in good and bad times we really appreciate it!," wrote Erasmus.

In the past, Erasmus has been known to voice his frustrations about refereeing decisions following a match. However Erasmus chose not to focus on any perceived officiating errors in what appeared to be an honest to goodness Twitter mea culpa.

Head coach Jacques Nienaber also conceded that there were issues in their approach to the match.

“Our plan was to win the Rugby Championship and to assess the players and we’ve got some good answers from these two games. We’ve got one more game in the Championship and then three warm-up games to complete that process," said Nienaber.

“Maybe there was a little bit of over-eagerness form some of the guys and some of them were short of a game – you could see the guys who came on looked a little more battle-hardened. But we’re not making excuses.

“The guys who came back from South Africa only arrived on Tuesday morning and we felt that having a couple of guys here that would be better adapted to the time zones and give us a better chance.

“We knew there were pros and cons. In 2019 a similar thing probably happened, and we had guys who weren’t exposed to Australia, and we were also chasing the game – and we scored a try and kicked the ball out to draw the game.

“The guys who came on were battle-hardened and that’s why we decided not to go the way we did in 2019 and send over a full 15 fresh guys – we wanted to mix it.”