Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber said it this week. He reckons his team are “not far off being World Cup contenders”. And he also thinks the world knows they aren’t far off.
Anyone disagree with that? They definitely are already World Cup contenders, and this Bok world champion team is arguably much closer to doing back to back triumphs at their rugby global showpiece event than any of their predecessors who were bidding for the same.
Nick Mallett’s team looked like the business for most of 1998, which was the penultimate year of that World Cup cycle, but they started to look fatigued when they attempted a Grand Slam tour at the end of that year and they failed to take ownership of a world record for consecutive victories when they lost to England. And Jake White’s team was so poor in 2006 – we can’t forget 49-0 in Brisbane and thrashings at the hands of New Zealand in Pretoria and Ireland in Dublin – that he was lucky to retain his job.
The Boks have already lost two matches on their current tour, and heading into the final match of 2022 against England at Twickenham on Saturday, their tour record reads played 3, lost 2 and won 1. The record for the year isn’t overly impressive either. But what this Bok team is doing that maybe Mallett’s team wasn’t in 1998 is gaining energy and growing.
Mallett’s team peaked in their record equalling patch from the end of 1997 to late 1998, while the current Bok side still looks some way short of peak but has also just lately started to add facets to their game that, if it continues, could see them reach the World Cup as red hot favourites.
PLAYING STYLE NEEDS ENDORSEMENT THAT COMES WITH VICTORY
There’s a caveat – while defeat at Twickenham on Saturday won’t be a huge setback if the Boks play like they did against Ireland, meaning before they started to embrace a change to a more all-encompassing, adventurous style, it will be if they play against England like they did against France and they get well beaten.
This final test of the year is crucial because the Boks need an endorsement, they need confirmation and vindication of where they appear to be heading. No-one on the outside would deny that they do need to add to their game, because they look a bit bereft on those days when their strength at maul and scrum time is fronted. But the team environment is a funny place sometimes, and on the inside there may just need to be another ‘W’, to go with the one they achieved against Italy, to really set themselves up for the World Cup year.
Centre Damian de Allende hinted this week that the Boks will continue on the path they started out on against France in Marseille. There was an element of horses for courses about the way the Boks ran the ball back in that game, but there has always been an intention on the Bok part to grow their game.
PUTTING PAST TWO YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE
That they were so one-dimensional in 2021 was chiefly down to what happened the year before. In other words, nothing. That was the Covid year, 2020, when the Boks did not play together at all. So as De Allende contends, there was no thought of them moving away from what had won them the World Cup when, playing together for pretty much the first time in two years, they went into a high pressure, must-win series against the British and Irish Lions.
The rest of that year was about the players finding each other again. This year there was a commitment to grow, but it coincided with a period where the Boks started getting some of the basics of their game wrong. There was also experimentation in selection, such as for the second test against the Welsh in Bloemfontein, when there were 14 changes, and the selections for the second Rugby Championship clash with the All Blacks were odd and cost them the game.
That game in Johannesburg was a pivotal moment in the season for the Boks. Had they followed on from their comprehensive thrashing of the All Blacks the week before, they might have really got their bit between their teeth and ended this year as No 1 on the World Rankings.
TOO MUCH INCONSISTENCY
Instead there was inconsistency, not only from game to game, but often within games. Had the Boks played in the first 20 minutes like they played the last 20 in Adelaide, for instance, they would have won both away games against the Wallabies. They just needed to tweak a few things and they would have triumphed over Ireland in Dublin, and it was the fate that conspires against you when you cop one of those unlucky red cards that have become a blight on the modern rugby landscape that cost them in Marseille.
There are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ here, but right now the performance graph does appear to be on as big an upward graph trajectory as the watchability of this Bok team. And if anyone wants to quibble that there hasn’t been some improvement this year, maybe some of the following stats should be of interest.
This year, compared to 2021, they have nearly doubled their amount of line breaks (2.5 to 4.8 per game), they pass the ball more often (49 per cent of the time, compared to 44 in 2021) and kick it far less (24 per match against 30.2 last year).
And those stats would have been influenced hugely just by the last two matches. Here are some more interesting facts: only New Zealand (4.2) and Ireland (3.7) have scored more tries per game on average in 2022 than the Boks (3.3). And South Africa (28.6) are beaten only by France (29.8) and the All Blacks (32.3), with both those nations having arguably beaten weaker teams along the way, when it comes to points per match.
Yet we also know that the Boks have wasted so many scoring opportunities and by so doing, they have left many points on the table. Which is why the Bok wins/loss ration isn’t looking as good as many would like it, and there’s also much talk about a success rate since the World Cup that is currently only around the 60 per cent mark.
ARGUABLY TOUGHEST FIXTURE LIST
But then you need to factor in that last year the only game the Boks played against a weaker nation was the pre-Lions series warmup against Georgia. After they edged the Lions, they went straight into the Rugby Championship, where the isolation protocols because of Covid impacted them and Argentina far more than the two Antipodean nations, and this year their only relatively easy game was last week’s against an Italian team that beat the Wallabies the week before.
Things certainly aren’t as negative as some like might to think, but perception is everything, and on Saturday the Boks need to win to set the seal on the performance, rather than outcome, improvements made in recent weeks. It won’t be easy as England coach Eddie Jones has probably come up with the right selection in retaining Maro Itoje to mark Eben Etzebeth at lock, and gone instead for the gargantuan Alex Coles, who has more experience anyway of blindside flank, on the side of the scrum.
The Boks are also missing players to English and French club commitments, which England are not, while there are also a high number of key players who are out injured, suspended or rested (Lukhanyo Am, Handre Pollard, Duane Vermeulen rested, Pieter-Steph du Toit).
However, on this tour the Boks appear to have been gaining energy, as opposed to the appearance of running out of gas towards the end of some previous end of year tours, and they’ve also correctly targeted the consistency over 80 minutes that was missing on their last two visits to Twickenham as a key requirement.
There are still concerns, such as now that Cheslin Kolbe isn’t in the mix the lack of a regular frontline place-kicker in the starting team, but I have a suspicion Saturday will see the Boks ending of 2022 in the style that is needed to set them up for 2023. They know it is most needed.
Teams
South Africa: Willie le Roux, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Makazole Mapimpi, Damian Willemse, Faf de Klerk, Evan Roos, Franco Mostert, Siya Kolisi (captain), Marvin Orie, Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Bongi Mbonambi, Ox Nche. Replacements: Malcolm Marx, Steven Kitshoff, Thomas du Toit, Marco van Staden, Kwagga Smith, Jaden Hendrikse, Manie Libbok, Canan Moodie.
England: Freddie Stewart, Tommy Freeman, Manu Tuilagi, Owen Farrell (captain), Jonny May, Marcus Smith, Jack van Poorvliet, Billy Vunipola, Tom Curry, Alex Coles, Jonny Hill, Maro Itoje, Kyle Sinckler, Jamie George, Mako Vunipola. Replacements: Luke Cowan-Dickie, Ellis Genge, Will Stuart, David Ribbans, Sam Simmonds, Ben Youngs, Henry Slade, Jack Nowell.
Referee: Angus Gardner (Australia)
Kick-off:7.30pm SA time.