Front-row shakeup backfires as France edge Boks in Paris

Whatever the outcome of South Africa’s Test match against Ireland in Dublin next weekend, the probability is low that the Boks will play for top spot in the Nations Championship in the last week of November.

The All Blacks, even after the Wales defeat, are best positioned to play the best of the southern hemisphere.

What a limp ending to a glorious Springboks Test season where they won Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Series 3-1 against the All Blacks.

France, in Paris, was always going to be a tough assignment — but this was a moment of self-destruction for Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus.

Whatever the rhetoric about it being good for the Boks in preparing for next year’s World Cup, the reality is the Boks lost to a French team devoid of half their team and their first four first-choice No 10s.

Rassie’s weakness

Erasmus has got so much right in transforming the Springboks into the most feared rugby team in the world that it is almost considered sacrilege to suggest he got something wrong.

But he got it wrong in Paris. Spectacularly wrong.

And the most frustrating aspect of the Boks’ 21-19 defeat against France at the Stade de France was that Erasmus’s cleverness — so often his greatest coaching strength — became his weakness.

We waited until the captain’s run on Thursday to decide, and even then, we were not sure if we should

—  Rassie Erasmus, Springbok coach

He outthought himself.

Erasmus announced a starting front row of Ox Nché, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw on Monday. By Friday evening, an hour before kick-off, all three were on the bench.

Gerhard Steenekamp, Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Thomas du Toit, originally selected as replacements, started. Why? What had changed so dramatically between Monday’s announcement and Friday’s kick-off that Erasmus felt compelled to reverse the most fundamental selection in the Springbok pack?

Nothing justified such a gamble. This was France in Paris. This was the Nations Championship. This was a match with enormous consequences for the southern hemisphere standings and potentially the world rankings.

Yet Erasmus’s explanation afterwards was that the decision was partly about testing a combination ahead of the 2027 World Cup.

He said: “We waited until the captain’s run on Thursday to decide, and even then, we were not sure if we should, but we decided shortly before the game, and it was mainly with testing that combination with the Rugby World Cup next year in mind.”

Erasmus was not sure on Thursday.

Unmatched imagination

Erasmus has built his reputation on being ahead of the opposition. He has revolutionised the use of replacements, redefined the importance of the bench and repeatedly demonstrated a tactical imagination unmatched in international rugby.

The Springboks had the world’s most destructive starting front row available. They had a combination with established international pedigree, proven cohesion and the capacity to impose themselves immediately. Instead, Erasmus chose experimentation.

Erasmus has made a career of challenging rugby conventions. In Paris, he challenged his own successful formula and paid the price

By the 35th minute, with France having scored three tries and leading 21-7, Nché, Marx and Louw were on the field. The supposed impact players had become emergency reinforcements.

The most established and settled rugby combination in the game currently self-destructed in Paris.

The defeat is not just down to the front-row change. Boks lock Lood de Jager’s yellow card was costly. Jasper Wiese’s 20-minute red card was another example of indiscipline undermining a team capable of winning even when playing poorly.

Decision-making questioned

The Springboks created opportunities and squandered them. They dominated the scrum without translating that into sufficient points.

France, by contrast, were clinical. Erasmus acknowledged as much. “France played really well, and we didn’t; so, I can’t find a lot of excuses. They took their opportunities when they got them, and we didn’t.”

He also questioned the decision-making when the Boks repeatedly sought scrum penalties rather than kicking to the corner and backing their lineout maul.

The irony was unmistakable. The Springboks’ greatest weapon was functioning, but their judgement wasn’t. And when Manie Libbok missed the conversion that could have levelled the scores, the margins became brutally obvious.

Erasmus also accepted responsibility for the team’s hesitancy. “We were uncharacteristically a little tentative tonight, and when something like that happens, it’s probably the coaching staff.”

The Springboks have the personnel to beat France in Paris. They showed that in their second-half fightback, despite playing much of the match with 14 men. They scored three tries apiece and lost by two points. They also lost a match they had the capacity to win.

Erasmus has made a career of challenging rugby conventions. In Paris, he challenged his own successful formula and paid the price.

There is a difference between being brave and being unnecessarily clever.