Gavin Rich's piece makes the case that the RGR series was won on unusual terms for Erasmus — minimal rotation and a settled core rather than the squad-wide exposure he'd flagged before the series. The lack of depth deployment was largely forced by the opening loss in Johannesburg, which demanded cohesion over experimentation. Now, with the series banked 3-1 and the Boks' world number one status firmly restated, Rich argues Erasmus can revert to his preferred approach of blooding players in high-pressure tests.
The Perth game against Australia is framed as the first real opportunity to do that. Rich identifies hooker as the position under most scrutiny — with Marx irreplaceable, Fourie an unlikely long-term answer, and Grobbelaar and Wessels barely used in the RGR, the pecking order there is genuinely unresolved. He also flags Pollard needing game time to hold his flyhalf spot, Porthen's case at tighthead, and the back three as an area of almost embarrassing riches — Moodie didn't feature at all in the series. Looking further ahead, Rich sees the November Nations Championship leg in Turin, Paris and Dublin as a genuine opportunity for Erasmus to take calculated selection risks, particularly if he chooses to rest senior players ahead of what remains a World Cup build-up year.