An error-ridden 33-16 loss to New Zealand was not catastrophic, and the Springboks must find a way to bounce back and win the next three Tests if they want to win the series, coach Rassie Erasmus said. The Bok mentor put on a brave face after an alarming defeat in which his misfiring team were outscored by five tries to one in front of 60,592 fans at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.Rubbing extra salt in the Boks’ wounds was that the defeat, at a ground considered to be South Africa’s spiritual home, ended a 12-match winning streak for the men in green and gold.Erasmus said his team needed to put many things right, and there would be no margin for error in the remaining three Tests of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.After the Ellis Park showdown, the sides square off in Cape Town for the second Test at the DHL Stadium on Saturday, at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg (September 5), and a series finale at the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore (September 12).“We have been in many catastrophic situations in our lives,” Erasmus said.“We lost the first Test against the British & Irish Lions [in 2021], and everyone said it was a catastrophe.“We lost the first pool game against New Zealand in the World Cup [in 2019], and everyone said that was catastrophic, so we have been in a lot of catastrophic situations.“We’re now in a position where, if we want to win the series, we have to win three games on the trot.“So, without doubt, it puts New Zealand in a very good position, which they thoroughly deserve.Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus (Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images) “Now we have to go to Cape Town and try and win there. “If we do, it’s all level, but we still have to win three matches in a row. I wouldn’t say it’s catastrophic because there is a way out, and that’s winning three matches on the trot.”Erasmus said the Boks had shot themselves in the foot with the number of errors they committed, which had been forced because of New Zealand’s excellence.“We were thoroughly beaten by a team that is now No 1 in the world. It’ll be nice to go into the next game as the underdogs.“I think we were dominant in the scrums, but it doesn’t help you if you’re dominant in one or two parts of the game. “The All Blacks were more dominant in most parts of the game.“I’m not going to butter it up with that cliché and say we’re going to learn from this and get better. We didn’t need to learn from this; we knew what we had to do on the day. We didn’t do it.”Erasmus said a turning point had been when the Boks trailed by three points (19-16) in the 58th minute and were pressuring the All Blacks’ scrum when they conceded a penalty on their own feed.“Even if we had kicked over that scrum penalty and we won, we still made a helluva lot of errors,” he said.“But it wasn’t a wake-up call. There were just so many things that we did wrong and that New Zealand did right, so I’m not going to say we learnt a lot of things from this match.— Forever Sports (@ForeverSportsOn) August 22, 2026 “There would have been a lot of things we’d have to put right even if we had scratched through this match with a one-point win.“We didn’t play well. Against a class team like New Zealand, if you don’t convert, they give you a proper hiding.“With hindsight, there were a lot of things we didn’t convert. I think there were two or three big moments when we let the game go away from us. Not because we wanted to or because we wanted to make those errors but because New Zealand forced those on to us by being really intense and sharp.”