Rassie Erasmus lays out blueprint to beat All Blacks – don’t spurn chances

Munster coach Rassie Erasmus says that Ireland's big game players must take every one of the "four or five scoring opportunities' that come their way against New Zealand to have any hope of victory in Chicago.

It’s just over a year since Erasmus’s South African side lost 20-18 to the All Blacks at the last World Cup – the seventh game in their 18-game unbeaten run – and he is convinced you cannot let scoring chances slip away against Steve Hansen’s side.

“The moment you are out of the match against them they punish you. Take your opportunities,” said Erasmus, who was the Springboks’ high performance manager.

“You don’t get 15 or 16 opportunities which you get against other international sides: you only get four or five. I think if you take those, you are in the mix.

Fundamentals

“We came within two points at the World Cup, after the first game losing to Japan. We came really close.

“The thing about them, in my opinion, is apart from having great structures and their fundamentals of their kicking game and all these things, when the big moment is there they just take it every time.

“I guess if you want to match that, when your few big moments come in the game . . . in a Test match against New Zealand you never get more than four or five opportunities, it’s either three or five points that you must take.

“They defend so well, put so much pressure on you, but I think the big-name players and the big-moment players, they will get the four or five opportunities and if you get points from that you are in with a chance.”

One man that didn’t make the trip to America is Peter O’Mahony, and Erasmus says he will definitely play against Ospreys this Friday in Cork – providing he is fully released from Ireland duties.

“If he is available and he is fit, but we haven’t seen him since. If he is available we’ll definitely select him, I know that.”

Meanwhile, it looks unlikely that Munster will be able to retain the services of Jaco Taute after his four-month contract with the province expires.

Stormers

Erasmus confirmed that the South African centre – who has scored three tries in successive games – has a contract with the Stormers and that he is scheduled to return home in the new year. “He is still with the Stormers, yeah. He must go back,” said Erasmus.

“We’ll have to see. There is a lot of things that must happen. Before he came there were a lot of things we had to sort out.

“Obviously we had to speak to the IRFU and Francis [Saili] is still coming back more or less the same time.

“The deal was only until the end of December and at this stage when Francis comes back Jaco will move back to South Africa. So let’s see what happens in the next two months, you never know, you might get injuries which you didn’t expect or somebody may take longer to heal or something like that.

“We are going to take it two weeks by two weeks before we actually look into that. Let him just keep on playing well.”