text: What Rassie Erasmus said on refereeing in Springboks loss to Ireland
  Rassie Erasmus has offered his opinions on the way the refereeing crew, headed by Karl Dickson, handled the Springboks’ 24–25 loss in Durban on Saturday. After down 6-16 at the half, South Africa stormed back in the second half, leading 24-19 on the tee on 65 minutes thanks to a well-executed penalty kick by Handre Pollard.
  But rather from going on to win and complete a 2-0 Test series triumph, Ciaran Frawley scored two drop goals to swing the balance sharply in Ireland’s favour and force a 1-1 draw in the series.
  With recently retired referee Jaco Peyper now part of the Springboks backroom staff, Erasmus volunteered, “You can sit here with a sad face and think out excuses but the best team won on the day.”
  “Obviously, we would want to be up 2-0, but the series is currently tied. There are always two or three points between us and them, and the competition is always fierce. “Listen, this is the last game of our season; after this, we have a five-week break,” was undoubtedly in their sentiment.
  Although we sort of anticipated them to come out swinging, they were excellent throughout the first half. In the end, it was a pretty well-executed drop goal that we were unable to stop. Although I thought we played a great second half comeback, it wasn’t good enough, and that’s why Ireland is among the best teams in the world.
  Due to the injury sustained in the second minute by experienced full-back Willie le Roux, who was replaced by youngster Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, the attack was unable to score even a single try for South Africa.
  “Our attack works a little bit better when Willie is around. Sascha’s unique brand of brilliance is undoubtedly something different in the game. Even though it was only his third game, he didn’t appear out of place.
  “While he may not be the youngest or fastest player anymore, Willie’s vision and feel for the game make him a valuable player who connects the two wings and the centers extremely well.
  “It’s sad to lose, not nice, and I know as we are disappointed. A lot of the fans will be disappointed as well. I wouldn’t say positives but I will say the experience that Sascha felt against a team which is really well organised and is ranked in the top one, two always in the world the last couple of years, he will take that and will use that going forward.”
  “I know we are disappointed, and it’s sad and not nice to lose.” There will be a lot of disgruntled fans as well. Positives? I wouldn’t say so, but Sascha will take what he learned from playing against a very well-organized team that has consistently been ranked in the top two in the world for the past few years and apply it moving forward.Because Ireland is so skilled at mauls and because James Ryan has such a special technique of stopping them, we don’t want to employ our lineout maul against them. Mauling wasn’t part of our game plan because not many teams find success with this tactic.
  “You are always under pressure when coaching against Paul O’Connell.” I felt there was room for improvement in both our attacking and our choices from the lineouts. The game’s primary focus wasn’t the excellent team that exerted pressure on us. Its early half was the primary source of concern.