{"id":294266,"date":"2023-10-19T17:39:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T17:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports-life-news.com\/?p=294266"},"modified":"2023-10-19T17:39:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T17:39:11","slug":"nik-simon-rassie-erasmus-predicts-englands-team-for-world-cup-semi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports-life-news.com\/rugby-union\/nik-simon-rassie-erasmus-predicts-englands-team-for-world-cup-semi\/","title":{"rendered":"NIK SIMON: Rassie Erasmus predicts England&apos;s team for World Cup semi"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>NIK SIMON: Rassie Erasmus begins mind games with Steve Borthwick as Springbok coach predicts England&#8217;s line-up for the World Cup semi-final &#8211; although he stops short of naming Smith or Steward as full back<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The last time the two met, South Africa won the 2019 World Cup final in Japan<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Erasmus had his predicted England line-up written down on a piece of paper\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus last night attempted to predict England\u2019s team for the World Cup semi-final \u2013 although he stopped short of selecting their full-back.<\/p>\n<p>The mischievous South African could not decide between Marcus Smith and Freddie Steward, as he awaits Steve Borthwick\u2019s official team announcement on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The last time the two nations met at a World Cup was when South Africa won the 2019 final in Japan and Erasmus believes England\u2019s players will still have \u2018beef\u2019 about the defeat.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018England because they are a massive speedbump for us to get over,\u2019 said Erasmus. \u2018I was looking at their possible team and we average 200 minutes per player; them 260.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The average caps in our team will be around 54; them around 59. Average age for us 30; them 29. Average weight 104 against 105. They&#8217;re unbeaten and have stuck to their guns.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/17\/20\/76676051-0-image-a-1_1697572360792.jpg\" height=\"433\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Springbok coach Rassie\u00a0Erasmus has attempted to predict England&#8217;s semi-final line-up<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/17\/20\/76676983-0-image-a-2_1697572436105.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>England coach Steve Borthwick will have to be prepared for the South African&#8217;s mind games<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Their team is full of belief. They&#8217;ll definitely be hurting, not just from the loss last year but also from the World Cup final in 2019.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Erasmus had his predicted England line-up written down on a piece of paper at yesterday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Now, we&#8217;re guessing, obviously. We took the basic guys \u2013 [Ellis] Genge, [Jamie] George, [Kyle] Sinckler, [Maro] Itoje, [Ollie] Chessum, [Courtney] Lawes, [Tom] Curry, [Ben] Earl, [Alex] Mitchell, [Owen] Farrell, [Elliot] Daly, [Manu] Tuilagi, [Joe] Marchant, [Jonny] May, Marcus Smith or [Freddie] Steward. That&#8217;s who we think but we might be totally wrong.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Firstly, guessing their team it\u2019s interesting \u2013 Marcus, will he or Freddie play? Marcus has the massive X-factor while Freddie is unbelievable under the high ball.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Will Owen play inside centre with Tuilagi outside or will Ford play fly-half and drop-goal everything there? They\u2019ve got Courtney who can play lock and flank, he\u2019s been such a rock at flank for them and they have the energy of the other two young loose forwards.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018They bring energy on the field in all departments. They\u2019ve got Sinckler there, Jamie and so many experienced players who played against us last time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think because they played us end of year last year, and they played us at the Rugby World Cup and Rugby World Cup final, and I think they\u2019ll have some beef with us.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/17\/20\/76677291-0-image-a-4_1697572460405.jpg\" height=\"410\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The South African coach stopped short of naming who will be England&#8217;s starting full back<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/17\/20\/76677243-0-image-a-3_1697572457828.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Borthwick now faces a tough decision to select Steward, who missed the last game, or Smith\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think they\u2019ll be very physical, they\u2019ll definitely step it up in all set phases and then they have a team full of \u2013 Tuilagi, it\u2019ll be a big job to stop him regardless of what position he plays.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Then you have Farrell, and the new scrum-half and I\u2019m sure Danny Care and Ben Youngs will be in the mix.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But the new scrum-half is certainly someone who can light it up with his breaks around the rucks. There\u2019re threats all over the park and it\u2019s starting to get together for Borthwick.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/rugbyunion\/article-12641915\/Rassie-Erasmus-begins-mind-games-Steve-Borthwick-Springbok-coach-predicts-Englands-line-World-Cup-semi-final.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NIK SIMON: Rassie Erasmus begins mind games with Steve Borthwick as Springbok coach predicts England&#8217;s line-up for the World Cup semi-final &#8211; although he stops short of naming Smith or Steward as full back The last time the two met, South Africa&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NIK SIMON: Rassie Erasmus predicts England&amp;apos;s team for World Cup semi - Sports-Life-News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sports-life-news.com\/rugby-union\/nik-simon-rassie-erasmus-predicts-englands-team-for-world-cup-semi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NIK SIMON: Rassie Erasmus predicts England&amp;apos;s team for World Cup semi - Sports-Life-News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NIK SIMON: Rassie Erasmus begins mind games with Steve Borthwick as Springbok coach predicts England&#8217;s line-up for the World Cup semi-final &#8211; 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