England vs South Africa, Rugby World Cup 2019: Rassie Erasmus accepts criticism and admits Springboks need to improve for final

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus has accepted criticism of his Springboks’ unattractive, attritional style of play while admitting that the side needs to improve ahead of this weekend’s Rugby World Cup final with England.

The Springboks ground out a narrow 19-16 win over Wales in their semi-final encounter, which offered little in the way of absorbing and attacking rugby.

That made for a stark contrast to the spectacle that fans were treated to in Yokohama last Saturday, with Eddie Jones’ side delivering what has been described as one of the all-time great English performance to down the All Blacks.

In light of such displays, England now head into the final as favourites to lift the Webb Ellis Cup – and Erasmus admits his team will need to improve if they’re to come away as victors instead.

Addressing criticism of the uninspiring showdown with Wales, Erasmus said: “If one understands where we have come from – we have been number six, seven and eight in the world – we have got certain challenges and one of them was to redeem ourselves and become a power again in world rugby and try and get to number one and two.

“By doing that you have to have some building blocks in place and we have followed a certain route and play according to the stats and the way the game is being refereed currently and what gives you short term good results on the scoreboard.

“We certainly accept that there are some things in our game that we have to improve and we take it on the chin and we will keep on improving that. But we have put ourselves in a position to maybe win the World Cup and we are in the final.

“Yes, we accept the criticism but we are also happy we are in a position to compete in a World Cup final which is ultimately where we want to be.”

Nonetheless, Erasmus indicated he wouldn’t be willing to tweak too much with his selection and tactics given the limited time on hand to prepare for Saturday’s final in Yokohama.

The 47-year-old, who made 36 appearances for the Springboks between 1997 and 2001, added that “it’s a bit of horses for causes”.

“Our team selection won’t be far off from what we’ve been selecting the last couple of games,” he said. “We’ll pretty much go with more or less the same team. We believe that’s the way we can get the best out of our team and we believe that’s the longevity of playing so many games in a six-day turnaround, rotating forwards and stuff like that.

“It’s a bit of horses for causes but we believe it’s our most in-fit, form, best available, best combination team so there’s a bit of both.

“We have 160 minutes of training, 60 minutes of team training and 40 or 60 minutes of split training when we split into forwards and backs so you have two days of training sessions so not a lot will change. You can expect very much the same from us on Saturday.”

Coaching in his first World Cup, having taken charge of the Springboks early last year, Erasmus conceded that he felt the pressure to deliver what would be a third title for the nation – a feat which would draw them level with New Zealand’s own record.

“On the pressure, I’ve never coached in a Rugby World Cup final, I’ve never coached in a previous Rugby World Cup semi-final or quarter-final apart from the last games.

“So the pressure’s on, we feel the pressure, we’re excited but we feel the pressure. We find out ways to handle it and try to work around it, and they have the upper-hand in terms of Eddie’s experience

“We’ve tried to find our own ways of handling that and so far, so good. But certainly Saturday will be a big test for us to see if we can go the last step.”

England and South Africa meet on Saturday morning in what is a repeat of the 2007 final, which the Springboks won 15-6 in Paris.