The big difference between the South African rugby team and all other international teams is they are not afraid to lose. The coach Rassie Erasmus will continue to experiment and to tinker with blooding new players even at the risk of losing a match. The aim is the bigger picture of winning the next World Cup. I recently read an article about world rakings and found it laughable that anyone would think the SA team are worried where they rank because they do not care.
If you think about this logically the international teams average 10-12 test matches per year so there is less than 50 matches between World cups to build and create a squad. Last weekend SA lost against Argentina with a "B" side and the difference was only 1 point. They could have won if the kicker had slotted a penalty kick n the dying moments, but he missed.
Personally I think Erasmus is flogging a dead horse with this player and he has proven time and again how inconsistent he is with his goal kicking. Maybe he will prove me wrong and why he is the coach, but I have my doubts and maybe he is just giving the player one more chance. gain on the other hand the player he would have used is injured so this player is the 3rd choice with the 2nd choice on the bench to finish the match tomorrow.
When look at other international teams around the World they do not change 10 plyers every other game mainly as they do not have the depth to do this. Most mangers/coaches are under pressure to perform and obtain results and why building depth is almost impossible to achieve. Only through player injuries does the team ever change and new players are not being tested at the highest level.
At the last World Cup we saw teams fade away at the latter stages due to the players not being rotated and this was highlighted in the number of minutes certain teams used plyers. Teams like Ireland had players that played every single game and that is fine for a short tournament, but not when you need to play 7 matches at a high physical tempo.
Just to give you an idea of how SA has rotated their squad they have used 48 players thus far in the 5 matches and with one match to still play tomorrow. This is the equivalent of 3 different teams which is kind of madness when most teams would have used 20-24 players believing that is rotating a team.
What this does by having so many plyers is this prolongs a players career by having played less games. The squad only lost 1 plyer due to retirement after the last World Cup and expect most of the team to be intact for the next world Cup in 2027. This would basically mean you would have some players fighting for their 3rd World Cup and know exactly what it takes to win the tournament. I would not be betting against them because this team is only going to get stronger over the coming years which must be a daunting prospect for their opponents.
