Rassie Erasmus talks up the rivalry against England and Twickenham’s record

The Boks have only won one of their previous four matches against England at Twickenham, a 27-13 win in 2022. In this game, they face the wounded hosts, and Erasmus has reiterated the importance of not looking down at them in front of their home crowd.

"The scrums, no, we've got them on a few occasions but they've certainly outnumbered us on few occasions and yes, the World Cup final, we didn't get that last scrum but it was a battle from the beginning until the end,” Erasmus said.

“So, for them to be fair though, I think the last six times that we've played outside the World Cup or five times, they won four. So, realistically we are not living in this bubble. We don't have a great record here and because they might be a little bit under pressure gives us no advantage because we haven't done well at Twickenham in the last four, five years."

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The rivalry between the two rugby nations has also been fueled by Bok's dominance over England at the last two World Cups after beating them in the 2019 final in Japan and in last year’s semifinal in France, respectively.

Erasmus recalls how this rivalry has always been the one to look forward to, even during his playing days.

"It's sometimes nice talking in a none rivalry. We are always under pressure, even the way we won last weekend, our people expect us to be better than that and we understand that fully but no, the rivalry is great,” the coach added.

“I remember when we were still playing and we won 17 test matches in a row and we wanted to break the record for 17 in a row, the 18th one, England stopped us. You know it's always been when we played at the World Cup in 1999.

“I played in the match when Johnny had a drop goal against Australia when they won the World Cup. England's always been an iconic place. Twickenham is special and the history around it and the kind of players that they produced. It will be a really tough match out there, we are under no illusions that it will be 50/50."