Rassie Erasmus wants South Africa to improve discipline

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus insisted that the Springboks need to work on their discipline following their victory over Portugal in Bloemfontein last Saturday.

The Boks now have three wins from as many games in the July Tests including a 2-0 series win over England followed by a 64-21 victory over Portugal led by a hat-trick from Makazole Mapimpi.

Erasmus' men saw Andre Esterhuizen yellow carded early in the 3rd minute for a dangerous tackle on Portugal centre Jose Lima, who was forced to leave the field. They yellow card was later upgraded to a red card.

They were also down by two players temporarily on two occasions when Kurt-Lee Arendse and Quan Horn sin-binned in the 33rd and 74th minutes respectively but despite the setback their 10-try performance ensured they completed a 43 point victory.

“Discipline is something we will need to look at after getting a red card so early. We had nearly 20 minutes with 13 men and the rest with 14,” said Erasmus.

“Obviously, we won’t win World Cups like that. So that is something we will focus on. The incidents were all accidents – they were not things the players did on purpose.

“We had to adapt to having 14 or 13 men, so that was a good thing. You get to learn the character of players in matches like this.

“(Assistant coach) Jerry Flannery was planning how to defend without a blindside wing or a centre.

“On the field, the players can get rattled or stay calm, so there were big learnings from that tonight".