Fear of regret trumps fear of losing for Rassie ahead of Scottish 'arm wrestle'

Edinburgh. - He is as competitive as they come but heading into Sunday's highly anticipated Test against Scotland at Murrayfield, Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is urging his players to consider more than simply the result. 

The Boks are fielding what has been dubbed a 'second A-team', with regular first-choice stars like Cheslin Kolbe, Damian de Allende, Jesse Kriel, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Siya Kolisi and Pieter-Steph du Toit either missing out entirely or starting on the bench. 

That has been orchestrated with next weekend's clash against England at Twickenham in mind.

Erasmus is concerned about the six-day turnaround between fixtures and how that might affect the freshness of his players. 

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Even with those selections, however, the Boks will enter Sunday's clash as comfortable favourites having beaten Scotland in all of their last eight meetings. 

But the performance, or at least the intent, is of more concern to Erasmus than the result. 

"We're trying to move away from the fear of losing," he told media on Friday.

"We all have it, because we're representing our country, but I think we're trying to lean more towards a fear of not leaving everything out there.

"We want to make sure we don't have regrets when we sit in the changeroom afterwards and say that we played within ourselves, and we weren't brave enough."

"It's never nice losing, but we're trying not to make that our cornerstone. We're more interested in not being disappointed with the effort we put on the field."

The last time the sides met, the Boks emerged 18-3 winners in their 2023 World Cup opener in a match where the scoreline - according to Erasmus - made it look far more comfortable than