Rassie Erasmus shows Henry Pollock love and expects tough battle against England

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is predicting a hard battle against England in the Nations Championship opener at Ellis Park next Saturday — and he rates brash loose forward Henry Pollock highly.

Pollock, 21, has only 10 caps, but he’s already stamped his authority on the game with his high work-rate, fiery temperament and up-your-nose attitude.

He has yet to play against the world champion South African outfit.

“Pollock is like Sacha [Feinberg-Mngomezulu], people make a hype around a player,” Erasmus told journalists in a virtual press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

“I don’t always think the players want that hype. They just have personalities that’s different to others, but what counts is what they do on the field and Henry certainly does his job on the field and that’s something we have to contain.

“His personality and how he does things, that’s up to him and the England squad and I guess the guys are used to him.

“If I were a coach working with him, I would look only at his output and his output is awesome,” said Erasmus.

England finished second from the bottom with only one win in this year’s Six Nations, but Erasmus isn’t taking the team coached by Steve Borthwick lightly.

“The English squad’s good. The average age is 27. I think the average Test caps about 32, so it’s a young but experienced squad. There are a few old names there, guys who are really experienced, Jamie George.”

The 35-year-old England skipper has 110 caps to his name.

“I think you’ll get youth and you’ll get fearless teams and two teams that really competed well in the final of their premiership [this past Saturday].

“It’s a very competitive squad and a squad that we obviously know we’re going to have to work really hard next week at Ellis Park to get the win.”

Erasmus said he and his coaching staff looked beyond the players of the opposing team, rather trying to analyse the combinations.

There is definitely a hell of a running threat and good aerial. There are a few guys that are coming through the premiership that’ are really good in the air, which was something we were really good [at] in the past year, so I think that’s going to be a massive battle

—  Rassie Erasmus

“They always change their structures and try to evolve, like all of us. I think we more or less think we know what they’re going to do, but then you get on to the day and they do something totally different.”

Several players, like Pollock, came from the newly crowned premiership champions Northampton Saints, as well as Leicester, who lost in the semifinals.

“There is definitely a hell of a running threat and good aerial. There are a few guys that are coming through the premiership that are really good in the air, which was something we were really good [at] in the last year, so I think that’s going to be a massive battle.

“And then tactically, I know Steve is a guy who works with numbers and he likes to chase trends and stuff and that’s always difficult to coach against a coach like that.

“For us to say we know what they’re going to do next week Saturday, I know we don’t.”

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