Rassie Erasmus says Saturday's 17-10 win over Argentina in Buenos Aires served its primary purpose — getting a raft of injury-hit Springboks back into match condition ahead of the four-Test series against New Zealand, which opens at Ellis Park on August 22.
"We had seven or eight guys who'd played almost no minutes over the last six or seven weeks, so I always thought it was going to be disjointed," Erasmus said after the narrow victory at Estadio José Amalfitani. "We just had to get a lot of players through some match fitness."
Kolisi lasted only 25 minutes before leaving the field with what appeared to be a recurrence of the hamstring problem that had kept him sidelined, but Erasmus received more encouraging news elsewhere. Lood de Jager and Eben Etzebeth both impressed on their returns, while Cobus Reinach and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu were reunited at halfback.
Erasmus was candid about the limitations of the Argentina fixture as New Zealand preparation. "I wouldn't say it's a good practice, honestly, because Argentina play a different style and it's very intimidating in the stadium here. Obviously, it wasn't pretty. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, but that we expected."
He highlighted the defence and discipline as positives while acknowledging the attack needs work over the next fortnight. "Over the next two weeks, we'll have to look at our injuries, and then we'll pick the team that we hope can try and win against New Zealand in the first Test."