Rassie Erasmus is turning his attention to the 2021 British & Irish Lions series as he seeks to help the Springboks stay at their peak.

It had hardly been a few hours after the Springboks claimed the World Cup that Erasmus was already speaking about the British & Irish Lions tour. While the Boks will have a new head coach, Erasmus will continue in his role as SA Rugby director of rugby.

‘When I took over two years, 18 months ago, it was just 618 days until the World Cup and we planned to win it,’ Erasmus said. ‘It is now about 614 days until the British & Irish Lions arrive in South Africa and we will start planning for that now.’

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While the Boks have enjoyed a revival under Erasmus and his coaching staff, climbing from seventh to first in the World Rugby rankings, the challenge is now to maintain that high standard.

‘The big thing for us is to stay consistent. What Eddie [Jones] has done with England when they won 23 out of 24 games and was starting to be consistent and with what Warren Gatland has done with Wales – starting to be consistent – that’s where we need to be.

‘We were terrible at that in 2018 – we were up and down – but this year we’ve played 12 and lost one so we have got that consistency back. And yes, we’ve got the World Cup here, but going into next year if you lose the first Test people forget about the World Cup and that’s not where we want to be.’

Erasmus was still confident that South Africa had the resources to build that consistency.

‘We have the players and the support to always be challenging and I am really excited for the future. We want to get consistency now and work towards the British & Irish Lions and next World Cup. Hopefully we can get that right.’

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