Rassie Erasmus wary of the ‘negatives’ of older Springboks but is ‘watching’ closely

Rassie Erasmus is happy with the current balance of the Springboks squad in terms of experience, but is wary of the negatives that come with having ageing players.

The 37-man squad that is currently training in Johannesburg ahead of the back-to-back matches against the Wallabies includes 24 World Cup winners and five players who made their Test debuts during the mid-year internationals

Many of the players that will attempt to defend the Rugby Championship title are also well into their 30s, with Erasmus repeatedly stating the need to blood the next generation of Springboks players.

That process has already begun with 50 players pulling on the Green and Gold jersey, 12 of whom doing so for the first time, last year. That former number has already almost been matched in 2025, with the depth of the player pool being further tested.

Older Springboks

Erasmus sees the positives of having older and more experienced players in his squad, but is cautious about the negatives. However, he is also pleased with the willingness to learn and pass on knowledge in camp through player-to-player coaching.

“You always try to find something where you can get better and the moment the players realise that, they are trying to find something to get better at too; and I don’t mean gym and conditioning, actually coaching each other and understanding not their own roles but the other players’ roles and start helping each other on the field,” Erasmus told Supersport.

“With the players getting older, they lose agility, speed and availability, but they start coaching each other and helping the younger guys.

“That’s probably what we hope the group is getting better and better at, but we must always watch the other one, which is the negatives of the older players, but at this stage, the balance is quite okay.”

Takeaways from mid-year internationals

Reflecting on the four incoming series matches against the Barbarians, Italy (twice) and Georgia, Erasmus said that those matches have given the coaching staff plenty of answers after trialling several combinations.

The real time when the guys can actually go and do it under pressure in front of crowds was great,” he said.

Whoever is your lock, hooker, front row, loose forward, or centre partner is, you can slot in because we’ve trained so much together. We’ve seen that we are still not quite there.

“We didn’t always stack positives on positives on positives in games, like we had a good 10 minutes and then a bad 5 minutes.

Obviously, with cutting the squad, hopefully that goes out now, but everybody should be pretty comfortable playing in the jersey now.”

The current training camp was not initially planned by the Springboks coaching team, but Erasmus and his staff opted to capitalise on the two-week gap and use it to their advantage.

The preparation time paired with the seven weeks during the incoming series leads the head coach to believe that the Springboks will have no excuses against the Wallabies, as they should have found their rhythm and be well prepared for the two Tests.

It’s been very lekker (nice) now that we’ve had those seven weeks together, and now another two and a half weeks, so we can give attention to detail to guys who actually know now that they’re going to play in these two Australian Test matches,” he added.

So we shouldn’t have any excuses anymore with rhythm or anything like that, because it’s players who have been in the system for a long time now, and we’ve got two and a half weeks to prepare. So that will help.”