Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has given his verdict on the debut of Vusi Moyo in his team’s 43-0 thrashing of Wales on Saturday night in Durban,
Moyo, a Junior Springbok and just 20 years of age, was thrust into the international spotlight. Erasmus gave him a measured evaluation.
“I think Vusi performed nervously, but that would be normal,” the Springbok coach said. “He was the youngest flyhalf to ever play for the Springboks. He was six months younger than Patrick Lambie, another Sharks flyhalf.
“To make your international debut against a tier one nation is tough for such a young guy,” Erasmus explained.
“Look, we have Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu coming back from injury ahead of the friendly against Argentina on August 8. He will play against the Pumas.
“Handre Pollard pulled his hamstring against Scotland and was not ready for this match, but he is fit now,” Erasmus continued.
For this game against Wales, we did not have Sacha or Handre, and we did not want to start Manie.”
Erasmus said that that the 43-0 score-line required hard graft.
“Maybe it did not look like it, but we had to grind it out. It was 14-0 for a long time before we eventually pulled away.
” At the end of the day, we had two flyhalves out, and we wanted to see Vusi as the next flyhalf in bearing in mind that we also wanted to look at Yaqeen Ahemed, who is an exceptional flyhalf but on duty in Georgia with the SA Under-20 team.
“It was next man up. We did not want to move Damian (Willemse) up for this game; we wanted to see how Vusi would go.”
