Rassie Erasmus has given the Springboks a pass mark after their 43-0 Nations Championship victory over Wales in Durban on Saturday, with his focus shifting immediately to the two-test tour to Argentina in two weeks.
Erasmus confirmed a squad of 26 will travel to South America, while a group of 15 or 16 players stays behind with some coaching staff to begin preparations for the Rugby Championship matches against New Zealand in August and September.
The coach was encouraged by the defensive improvement after last week's performance and by the solidity of the set piece. "We didn't lose a lineout ball and, while we weren't on our game in the scrums last week, we were good today — our maul stopping and mauling itself was good," he said. "Our defence was better than last week — we worked really hard on that — and then our set piece was really solid."
Erasmus acknowledged the conditions played their part in a succession of handling errors but did not use them as a mitigating factor. "The field is really slippery... it was tough to play an expansive, pretty game in weather like that against a team that really wanted to defend," he said. "But we got a lot of fixes right."
Vusi Moyo, who became the youngest flyhalf in Springbok history at 20 years and 27 days, made his test debut in the match. Erasmus was complimentary about the youngster's composure in difficult conditions but noted his energy visibly dipped in the second half. "He's a really accurate kicker. I thought he handled it extremely well. But his tyres were a little pap in the second half when we took him off."
On the injury front, Handré Pollard has pulled his hamstring, though Erasmus confirmed Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu will be available for the Argentina tour. Erasmus was measured in his assessment of the challenge ahead: "Argentina is going to be tough — like Wales they've had our number a few times, and our biggest loss since we've been together from 2018 was to them."