Reigning in the in-between years at last

Before the 2019 Rugby World Cup final against England in Yokohama, the Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus and his management hosted the travelling South African media to a lunch at the team hotel in Tokyo Bay.

In my thank you speech on behalf of my colleagues, strongly believing the Boks would beat England and win the RWC for the third time and searching for something to say, I ended up imploring Erasmus, his assistant Jacques Nienaber and the other coaches to do something no Bok coach had done before. Win not only a World Cup, but ensure that the side were also consistent winners in the years between the global tournaments.

It wasn’t something that had been managed before. The Bok team that won the 1995 World Cup did not really continue as the same unit into the years and seasons that followed. Health issues saw the first World Cup-winning coach Kitch Christie hand the reins over to Andre Markgraaff, and within a few months the first World Cup winning captain, Francois Pienaar, was dropped.

Several other stalwarts of the 1995 team also exited during the course of 1996 and the beginning of 1997, by which time Markgraaff had made way for Carel du Plessis, with the first ever home series loss to the All Blacks being followed by one to the British and Irish Lions a year later.

With the Boks also struggling in the buildup months to the 1999 World Cup, it was only really 1998 in that four year World Cup cycle that the Boks looked anything like world champions.

They won their first ever Tri-Nations that year and under the coaching of Nick Mallett and the leadership of Gary Teichmann they completed an unbeaten run of 17 games that equalled a world record.

The next World Cup win was in 2007 under Jake White, who was either relieved of his position or chose to go volitionally (it depends on who’s version you listen to) immediately after South Africa’s second triumph in Paris. Peter de Villiers took over and the Boks finished last in the Tri-Nations in his first season and and also in 2010. The season where they won a British and Irish Lions series and won the Tri-Nations, which featured a 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand, was the only successful part of that four year cycle.

So when Erasmus guided the country to a third World Cup title, it was reasonable to ask for the one thing that hadn’t been provided after previous World Cup wins - to not only become champions, but to reign as champions too.

Reflecting back on yet another landmark achievement for the group of players who have played for the Boks during what some know as the Rasnaber years, the outright annexing of what will become a highly coveted Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry trophy, the gap has been filled in.

The Boks class of 2019 has undeniably reigned as champions - with three Rugby Championship titles, one British and Irish Lions series and one RGR trophy to add to the two World Cup wins.

MORE THAN JUST A FEW CURVE BALLS ALONG THE WAY

It wasn’t all plain sailing, and when I mention the Rugby Championship trophies some might ask, “Well, it has been seven years and yet the Boks won the main southern hemisphere trophy only three times, what happened in the years they didn’t win the Championship?”

Good question, but an easily answerable one. The World Cup cycle building up towards 2023 was not a normal one. Erasmus would not have known what was coming when at the post-match press conference following the 2019 final he mentioned the number of days remaining until the next Bok challenge - the 2021 Lions tour.

I can’t remember how many days it was, but there was going to be a gap of about a year and a half before we welcomed the composite team representing for the four Home Unions to South Africa. Only there was one small problem - the Boks hardly played in that one and a half years.

The arrival of Covid put paid to any plans Erasmus, as SA’s director of rugby, and Nienaber as the newly appointed head coach, had of continuing the momentum built up in the Japan World Cup.

South Africa and Japan were the two nations that did not play any international rugby in 2020. And with the laws around the pandemic being stricter here than in some other parts of the world, and players living in isolation for many months, there wasn’t any rugby in SA at all between the second half of March, when Super Rugby was suspended, and October of that year, when there was a tentative return through various Lockdown competitions.


So the reason the Boks didn’t win the Rugby Championship that year was that there wasn’t one, with the other three teams playing a Tri-Nations instead. And the bizarre new normal continued into 2021, a year where the Boks spent months rather than just weeks in quarantine and isolation, first in the Lions series, where it was a miracle that they won it if you consider they only had one game against Georgia between the 2019 RWC final and the first test, and then in Australia, where the entirety of that Rugby Championship was played.

There was some return to normality in 2022 and the Boks scored a resounding win over the All Blacks in Nelspruit only to let it slip with some questionable selections a week later against those opponents in Johannesburg.

The Boks probably were the best team in that Championship, but the Ellis Park reverse to the Kiwis left them needing to win by a big score against Argentina in their last game at Kings Park.

In the end, they fell just short, but given some of the Bok high points in those two years, such as the big win at Twickenham that ended Eddie Jones’ stint as England coach, I am not sure they would have been many who’d have argued against the contention the Boks were the best or near the best. It certainly didn’t come as a major surprise that they went back to back in 2023.

THIS CYCLE HAS BEEN THE BEST

That Covid impacted World Cup cycle was no match though with the current one as far as Bok rugby is concerned. There have been two Rugby Championships, and the Boks have won them both. The RGR series replaced the Championship this year, and the Boks won that too. They beat France in Paris last year with 14 men, they monstered Ireland with their scrum in Dublin on the same tour. They’ve been consistently ranked No 1 pretty much since the 2023 World Cup final.

A World Cup is a funny thing. It takes one bad day at the office for your dreams to die. To some extent every team is slave to fate and fortune, and there have been many years where there were other teams who were arguably better than the teams that lifted the trophy.

But there is something to be said for consistency, for instilling a culture of excellence that leads to expectation of victory and of winning titles as opposed to just hoping, and the Boks have now arrived at that point. The World Cup draw, which is likely to pit the Boks and All Blacks against each other in the quarterfinal round next year, is ridiculous. There really should be an inquest about how that came about given that the two teams are some distance ahead of the rest of the world in No 1 and No 2 spot on the rankings.

But unless the All Blacks lose to Australia in the opening game it is going to happen. To my mind, no matter what form the Boks or All Blacks take into the game, a playoff between them is always 50/50. Well, okay right now I’d say it is 55/45 to the Boks given what it takes to win World Cups and what the Bok strengths are, but you know what I mean.

My point though is it can’t just always revolve around the World Cup and this is a golden age for the Boks that is happening and deserves to be celebrating. There hasn’t been another period of sustained success for the Boks in the post-isolation or professional era anything like this one.

And with the systems that have been put in place that have ensured the pipeline is working, as shown by the domination we have seen from the national age-group teams in recent times, it could well continue for some time to come.

A MUCH CHANGED NARRATIVE

We are approaching the 10 year anniversary of one of the Springboks’ most embarrassing defeats.. And yes, there was an even bigger defeat half a year later in Albany, when the Boks lost 57-0 to the All Blacks, but for me the 57-15 loss in Durban on 8 October 2016 was the worst of the lot. Because it happened on South African soil.

And from my memory, having been at Kings Park that day but watched the Albany game on television, the All Blacks were more emphatically better than the Boks in the 2016 annihilation than they were in the one on New Zealand soil, where I can remember the Boks physically fronting early on only to concede some quite freaky tries that just opened the floodgates.

I wasn’t surprised in 2017 when a few weeks after Albany the Boks pushed the Kiwis all the way before losing by the narrowest of margins in Cape Town a few weeks later. Somehow the chasm seemed wider to me in 2016 than it did in 2017, and those with good memories might remember the crisis measures that were introduced after that Kings Park result in 2016.


There was an emergency meeting of all SA’s rugby intelligentsia called in Cape Town and it really did feel at that point that SA rugby was heading in the same direction as West Indies cricket did in the decades after their domination of that sport ended.

I can remember queueing for a train in Cardiff after the Boks lost by 20 points to Wales, and that just a week after the first ever loss to Italy, and listening to Welsh people being almost patronising about the Boks. There was almost a feeling they’d done well to just lose by 20.

How the world has changed since then, and how the narrative has changed. The All Blacks have just lost a series 3-1 and yet there are people in New Zealand who have been heartened by the fact their team came so close. The All Black coach has spoken about signs of encouragement, and he lauded his team for their effort.

Which is not me denigrating that view, but recognising how much the Boks have grown and how much the narrative has flipped in the space of the last 10 years.

ANOTHER DRIVING MAUL TO CELEBRATE

Last week’s game in Baltimore will be remembered for Kurt-lee Arendse’s brilliant transition try, but earlier that Saturday there was a section of the SA rugby public that had something so typically South African to celebrate - a driving maul try.

I know it was a different level of rugby, but the great maul Griquas put together to win the Currie Cup final against the Pumas was perfectly timed to confirm a point made in the Striking It Rich column that preceded the domestic final - “Ah, but your maul is beautiful”.

Yes, it is, but so was the flair and strike ability of the Springbok backs in the USA game. And anyone who saw Griquas play this season will know that they don’t rely on the maul as a staple either, there has been some spectacular running rugby from them under the coaching of Piet Bergh.

And that’s rugby union for you, there are many different ways to play, and the teams that succeed are those who are flexible and are strong enough in all areas to have more than one way to win. That’s what the Boks are working towards.

WARNING LIGHT AS ONE WEEK AFTER RGR EDEN PARK IS SOLD OUT

So it has only been a few days since the RGR series ended and already there’s been a stark reminder, or reality check, on the New Zealand concerns that drove their anti-scrum narrative in the early parts of their tour and the early parts of the RGR series.

The Auckland Warriors rugby league team has moved their game from Mount Smart, with a capacity of 26 000, because it was too small, and promptly packed out Eden Park, which has a capacity of 48 000.

If that reflects a growing drift to the 13-man code in that country, and the comparative figures of rugby league and domestic/franchise rugby union competitions appears to confirm it, it should be a concern to us as much as it is to them. For rugby union does need New Zealand to be strong.

The RGR series going forward are not going to rank as the greatest show on earth, as this one did, if the All Blacks are weakened by having their resources divided between different codes. It is not as if New Zealand as a nation has the biggest population as it is.

Does that mean the rest of the world needs to follow the Kiwis by transitioning rugby union into a synthesis of union and league, as has started to become evident in Super Rugby? No, it doesn’t. But it is nonetheless a concern and does kind of explain quite a lot.

MY RGR AWARDS

Best moments off the field: Every time Siya Kolisi opened his mouth to speak. There’s a statesman if ever there was one.

Most Valuable Springbok player: Malcolm Marx, Jasper Wiese and Damian de Allende are the candidates here, and Marx wins. Let’s put it this way, he’s the least replaceable.

Most Valuable All Black player: Jordie Barrett’s defensive work effectively won the Ellis Park test for the All Blacks but Will Jordan gets my nod for his attacking skill.

The Big Miss: The All Blacks might have troubled the Boks more at the breakdown had they selected Du Plessis Karifi for this tour.

Best Moment: Marx punching the ground in triumph as he dotted down the statement maul try in the third test. That was the moment South Africans knew their fortress had been defended.

Low Moment: Actually there weren’t many on the field - I’d turn instead to all the talk that was designed to influence referees to destabilise the Bok scrumming power. The scrum is part of the lifeblood of rugby, without it we are playing league.

Bok Bolter: If we are looking back at the SA home international season as a whole, then it is Paul de Villiers, but if we are looking at just the RGR series, then it is Morne van den Berg. Ethan Hooker had already arrived in my opinion so is no bolter.

The Man Who Stepped Up: South Africa’s most capped player, Eben Etzebeth, was outstanding in the series and showed no signs of age catching up with him.

Defying Old Father Time: Well, his mates call him Brannas…

The NZ Player SA Should Most Fear: Cam Roigard.

Best City Visited: Johannesburg. You don’t have to believe me, and yes I know about the pot-holes and the poor lighting, but I thoroughly enjoyed my several weeks in the Big Smoke during the SA international season (two weeks during RGR and close to two during the Nations Championship).

Best Place Visited: Well, it’s kind of related to the above - Pirates Sports Club in Joburg.

Best Decision Made: My decision to stay in Joburg for the Lions game rather than fly back to Cape Town at the start of the week building up to the second test. That midweek game was arguably the most enjoyable game of the entire tour. I like Joburg and I like the Lions? There must be something horribly wrong with me…