Experimenting can be a great way to test certain players and to build depth within a team. This needs to be carefully co-ordinated and planned for. You're playing with fire if you do this on a regular basis.
South Africa rugby head coach, Rassie Erasmus, has been caught doing this one too many times; even for critical matches and moments. He has started to garner criticism for it.
Former England internationals, Mike Tindall and Jonny May have suggested that Rassie Erasmus may be deliberately engineering difficult situations for the Springboks as part of a calculated long-term strategy.
The pair shared their analysis on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby XTRA podcast after South Africa suffered a 42-38 defeat to Australia in Perth last Sunday, a result that followed the conclusion of Rugby's Greatest Rivalry by nearly three weeks.
Much of the conversation focused on the 13 alterations Erasmus made to his starting line-up for the one-off Test against the Wallabies. Erasmus himself acknowledged that the world champions bore responsibility for the outcome but noted that a lack of familiarity among the selected players contributed to the defeat.
Tindall argued that the loss was unlikely to shift Erasmus' wider plans, describing the Springbok coach as someone who consistently looks ahead rather than dwelling on individual results. He said Erasmus is fully aware of the talent already at his disposal but remains intent on broadening his options; using matches to introduce less experienced players to the pressures of international rugby. Defeats, in Tindall's view, serve as instructive moments that communicate the standards required at Test level.
The approach is consistent with Erasmus' behaviour during Rugby's Greatest Rivalry, where he made late selection changes; including adjustments to his front row shortly before the second Test against the All Blacks.
He also attracted attention after a heated press conference exchange with All Blacks coach, Dave Rennie, over the Springboks' scrum tactics. 'Operating Well Ahead of Rivals' May built on Tindall's analysis by pointing out that elite coaches sometimes introduce turbulence even when conditions appear favourable.
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He suggested Erasmus may treat setbacks as controlled experiments, using them to surface problems and then address those weaknesses in training. May added that coaches operating at the highest level have the latitude to think unconventionally and that it would not surprise him if Erasmus regarded a defeat as a deliberate step in the Springboks' development.
May concluded by suggesting that Erasmus and his coaching staff are working well ahead of their rivals in terms of long-term planning and preparation.
Former Wallabies head coach Ewen McKenzie believes that Rassie Erasmus relies on certain players to make his experimentation possible.
Several players have also made their Test debuts; including: winger Jaco Williams; fly-half Vusi Moyo; lock Ruben van Heerden and tighthead prop Carlu Sadie.
Key 2026 Experiments & Strategy
• Positional Flexibility: Trialing Malcolm Marx on the flank/side of the scrum, using Jan-Hendrik Wessels at loosehead prop and hooker, and deploying Andre Esterhuizen as a hybrid centre-flank.
• Sweeping Rotations: Fielding heavily altered matchday lineups (such as 13 changes ahead of tests like the Perth encounter or blooding 12 inexperienced players against Scotland) to stress-test squad depth under brutal game conditions.
• Reactive Bench Deployments: Utilising mass bench substitutions not just as a rigid plan, but as a dynamic, rolling roll-of-the-dice to alter game momentum when tactical needs arise.
• Cultural Integration: Inviting outside prospects into training camps early to familiarize them with team systems, turning broad national transformation into a practical performance advantage.
Whilst Erasmus has chopped and changed his team frequently for the first Tests of the international season; there have been a handful of consistent features, most notably stand-in captain, Pieter-Steph du Toit and outside centre, Jesse Kriel.
Former Australia coach, Ewen McKenzie, believes that this is by design, with the pair forming part of the ‘core players’ in the Springboks team and are important members of the starting XV.
McKenzie spoke glowingly of Kriel, who captained the Springboks for the first time in 2025, likening the veteran back to legendary All Blacks centre, Conrad Smith.
"He is probably like a Conrad Smith in terms of he sort of organises the defence," he said
"He’s clearly a good communicator. He’s aggressive and on his game. So, he always has key players that are still out there. Even though Rassie is experimenting elsewhere, he’s got key individuals – they’re obviously important."
"In the end, they rely on their power game and that rewards them. They’re able to go to that. Again, they didn’t have much territory, but when they got up there, they convert. So I don’t know what you know as a percentage, but when they get into the 10 meters in the goal line, they’re pretty efficient at making sure they get across the line."
When the Springboks faced Scotland in June; a much-changed and youthful Springbok team secured a 42-28 victory over Gregor Townsend’s men at the home of the Bulls in round two of the Nations Championship; with Erasmus fielding 12 players with fewer than 10 Test caps against the Scots.
While the Springboks are dealing with an ever-growing injury list, Erasmus still opted to leave out multiple experienced and double World Cup-winning players for the fixture against Scotland; as the coaching team continues to plan for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
It’s not a new ploy from Erasmus, having heavily rotated players and handed opportunities in Test matches building up to the 2019 and 2023 tournaments; with South Africa notably falling to defeats to Wales (2018 and 2022) as well as in Tests against Argentina.
However, he is pleased that this time around, the coaches are learning about the team whilst winning matches.
"There was a stage since 2018 when we were losing, when we were learning who can do it and who still needs some work at this level," he said after the win over Scotland.
"If you look at the Scotland team, and this is not to try to make our performance look better, but we knew when they flew over and the way they had smashed Argentina, beat England, beat France, and they played in February together."
"We had half a team (12 players) of guys who have 10 caps or less, so cohesion was always going to be a problem; you could see that in the defence when we made some subs at the end. Obviously there are a lot of guys that we did not play in this game, and a lot of them are injured. So yes, we learned a lot about players, not that they’re not good enough, but there’s a lot of work to do on that."
"The only guys missing for Scotland were probably Blair Kinghorn, Tom Jordan – I think he is a brilliant player – and maybe Huw Jones. This is a team that’s fourth or fifth in the world and who beat France and England."
"This was a Test that some of the guys needed – not a tier two nation where they got three or four caps. A tier one nation that’s really, really a class team."
It was a risk from Erasmus and his staff as the Springboks entered the game on a nine-Test winning streak, at the top of the World Rugby rankings and on top of the Nations Championship table.
While the head coach is in the good graces of the South African public; he is wary that can change and change quickly but said he believed that the supporters understood what the team was trying to do against Scotland.
"I don’t think the crowd was happy at the end, but I think South Africa understands what we tried to do in this game," he said.
"In the past, I felt if we made four changes people would ask ‘what are you doing?’ But I feel the interaction between us and the supporters – through the media – gives us a togetherness and people know what we are trying to do. I think that’s something that’s changed over the years."
"It’s the crowd believing in the team and the team believing in South Africa because they could easily have gone against us with those easy tries we gave away but there’s a few players who haven’t done it at this level."
"If we lose, the knives will be out – but for me the most important thing is learning about the players. If we had lost this game, I think there would be some of the crowd who would understand what we tried to do – but luckily we won."
Since reclaiming the head coach reins in 2024, Erasmus has used matches against Tier Two opposition to blood in new Springboks. However, he believes that it was important to test some of the players against quality opposition like Scotland to better gauge their performances.
He feels that he got answers at Loftus with many players still having a lot to do to remain in the squad, while others proved that they are ready for the highest level.
"I’m not trying to butter up the performance and the Georgians will kill me (for saying this), but we could wait until we play Georgia and then a guy does pretty well but you’re not sure that the intensity is the same as a team that beat England, France and Argentina," he explained.
"We thought they were going to be tougher than the English because they beat England and they’re not missing any players besides Kinghorn and Jones. Now we know that a lot of guys need a lot of work to stay in the squad; some guys made it."
South Africa’s greatest danger before the 2027 World Cup may be the belief that everything Rassie Erasmus does must eventually be vindicated. Win and the system is working. Lose and the experiment was necessary. That argument is impossible to disprove, which makes it useless.
Erasmus has been explicit about exposing emerging players to leading opposition. When announcing his squad for the Australian Tests in July 2025, he identified those encounters as essential examinations of depth.
That distinction matters. A promising player can look accomplished behind a dominant pack against limited opposition. Selection becomes meaningful when the opposition removes that protection.
Perth supplied an uncomfortable example. South Africa changed 13 starters from the side that faced New Zealand in Baltimore; then lost 42–38 to Australia. They had trailed 42–17 after 65 minutes. The late recovery narrowed the score; it didn't erase the preceding failures. Erasmus accepted responsibility. Any analysis defending his broader strategy should begin with the same honesty.
Australia were opponents with their own ambitions, capable of exposing weaknesses that mattered immediately. Treating their victory merely as useful Springbok research would diminish both their achievement and the seriousness of South Africa’s performance.
Yet there is a defensible purpose behind accepting selection risk now. An injury during a World Cup cannot be answered with a development plan. The replacement must already understand the demands, and those around him must know how to play alongside him.
That is where genuine depth begins. It is not three credible names beside every position. It is the ability to change personnel without losing collective judgement.
A scrum-half must recognise when his fly-half needs quicker possession. A centre must trust the defender outside him. A replacement prop must function within a particular scrum, against a particular opponent; under a particular referee. These relationships cannot be manufactured by reputation.
South Africa’s advantage is, therefore, better understood as a capacity to prepare alternatives than a guarantee of interchangeable excellence.
The tactical evolution follows the same logic. Tony Brown’s appointment to oversee attack, alongside Jerry Flannery’s arrival in defence, established a coaching structure intended to develop the champions through another cycle. Describing the previous Springboks as a one-dimensional power team understates the intelligence already required to win successive World Cups.
The attacking ambition is compelling: make opponents defend more possibilities while preserving the pressure generated by the forwards. Width becomes valuable when defenders can't abandon the threat closer to the breakdown. Additional passing options matter when they produce uncertainty, rather than movement without penetration.
There is a cost. More options require sharper decisions. An ambitious pass behind retreating forwards can expose the team more brutally than a conservative carry. Attacking expansion must be judged by execution against organised resistance, especially when possession is slow.
Defence demands equal scrutiny. Aggressive line speed can suffocate an attack but it also places enormous responsibility on timing and connection. Once the first pressure is beaten; recovery becomes decisive. Calling the system improved requires evidence across comparable matches; a coaching appointment alone proves nothing.
Nor does a forward-heavy bench promise unchanged scrum dominance for 80 minutes. It offers a resource advantage while concentrating risk elsewhere. Injury, fatigue and positional disruption still demand decisions no selection sheet can settle beforehand.
The uncomfortable issue is dependence. A squad can contain numerous internationals while still relying disproportionately on a few players to settle difficult moments. Finding another capable fly-half is different from reproducing Handré Pollard’s particular contribution. Replacing RG Snyman involves more than selecting another tall lock.
The task is to develop workable alternatives, including different ways of winning.
That becomes more important in 2027. The expanded tournament introduces a round of 16, meaning finalists must negotiate four knockout matches rather than three; while still playing seven matches overall. There is one more occasion on which a bad evening ends the campaign. Any proposed sequence of heavyweight opponents remains conditional on results.
Erasmus deserves credit for confronting uncertainty before it becomes an emergency. Experimentation earns its value through what changes afterwards. If exposed weaknesses persist, the lesson has not been learned, however sophisticated the explanation.
There must also be a point when exploration gives way to consolidation. Combinations need shared minutes under pressure. Constant variation can reveal options while delaying the familiarity needed to use them well.
The Springbok moat is neither a fluke nor an impregnable defence. It is a demanding preparation process whose credibility depends on correction.
This post is dedicated to Marc Lieberthal for the suggestion of this topic.
I am all for building depth. It's important to do so as a precautionary measure. You can't rely on the same players to play every minute of every match. However, I am opposed to a massive heap of changes at once. It can create a disarray among the squad/s.
I would take the slow burn approach. I would introduce new players one or two at a time. It's important to pair 'rookies' with experienced players for guidance. Playing at international level is a whole different kettle of fish to that of the domestic level.