Springboks: World champions or chumps?

Yes Bluesfan, your quoted stats are accurate and most impressive. However, try these stats. Nine WCs have been held. The Springboks did not compete in two of those WCs, yet the Springboks have won it on 3 occasions. Considering the political upheavals the Springboks have had to endure over the recent years; something that no other international Rugby team has had to endure; the Springboks aren't doing too badly at all.

Dannyboy spot on. There is no special dispensation for the Boks in the rankings system, Jacko made that up. Jacko despise that the AB is #2 on the RWC ranking. Last years RC should have been played in NZ that would surely have fixed the issue for Jacko but then at the last minute it was moved to Australia and then the Boks pulled out depriving the AB of the opportunity to take back their #1 spot. Then they dropped to #3 when they lost against Argentina and the gap between the Boks and the #2 team just got bigger and bigger. If you look at the 2020 financials of NZ rugby the addition revenue from the RC would not have put them in the black either so that is not the real agenda here.

I think they may have thought 2021 will pan out different especially the Lions tour than it did. For me that was a good decision as they were not prepared for test rugby. This year they should be.

Poor comment, you can come up with one eyed biased arguments for each World Cup winner if you are looking for some unjustified reason they won including the AB in 1987, 2011 and 2015. E.g. they won in 1987 because the Boks didn’t play, in 2011 France was the better side in the final and Joubert cost them the game, etc. It is competition sport and a few mistakes by anyone can cost you the title in the finals, and that is how it should be. England comprehensively outplayed NZ in 2019 when it mattered and the Boks comprehensive outplayed them a week later. The Covid disruption happened or is still happening and I don’t have an idea today who the best side in the world is. We need to get back to normal and the best teams need to play each other again. As NZ was less impacted by covid I expect they may have progressed, however they also lost a lot of experienced players. The loss against Argentina has demonstrated that everything has not necessarily improved. Some key Bok players are showing great form in Europe while others are coming back for injury. Until the play each other again the Boks are the RWC champion and the #1 team according to World Rugby.

I wonder who benefits from that more. Cavernous mega-stadiums, lots of audible player chatter, a bit scarier in the mongrel, but silent.

Games now limited to two venues and tickets are being refunded. This is now a play-for-tv event.

Who's Suzie?

It's clear to see that based on your comment you know nothing about rugby

Absolutely nailed it Harry.. Yes Warrenball has yielded close encounters in past World Cups.. Also the Lions 2017 drawn tour to NZ.. But… That’s all it’s yielded.. A limited but efficient game plan with limited outcomes?

If you build it, they will come.

I’m building something

Far out man this should’ve been an article

Still couldn't beat the world champion All Blacks. Twice they have won the RWC with suss results. their win in France was courtesy of referees when they should have lost to Fiji and England plus the infamous Yorkshire referee who ruled over more All Black losses than any other in history and more than all practising referees combined. Then there was the Suzie victory. Pretty hollow history really. Australia had two exceptional teams for their deserved victories but now we can only boast the odd game against the Black Magic and struggle to beat tier two teams like England and Samoa, even tier three teams like England's Celtic colonies can be challenging

Two canny coaches face a final verdict this year. Win, lose or draw, the 2021 Lions tour of South Africa will seal opinion on the greatness or ordinariness of Rassie Erasmus and Warren Gatland. Make no mistake: Rassie is the Springbok coach, no matter his title. And even if Gregor Townsend wedged unready Chris Harris, Rory Sutherland, Duhan van der Merwe, and Zander Fagerson into the squad, the actual Lions test team will be a fully Gatland team, and it will play a ‘Warrenball.’ Gatland could not make his staid template work in Super Rugby, but he tends to do well with his resources at test level. Beat one of his teams in a final, and you will have earned it. South Africa had to go through a Warrenised Wales in 2011, 2015, and 2019, and each time, just squeaked by. Erasmus could have walked off into the sunset after spanking Eddie Jones’ England 32-12 in the 2019 World Cup final and toured the corporate and sport world as a motivational change consultant speaker: ‘How I Rescued a Nation.’ But like that old Wild West gunslinger who tires of growing potatoes and kids, he dug his Colt out of the hole, pulled on his weary boots, and rides out again. This tour presents an unusual petri dish of coaching comparison. Both Rassie and Warren have similarly short times to gel their teams. Each can name a XV remarkably similar to their last great moments on the international stage. When you look at the Lions team that scored only twelve points in the third test in New Zealand in 2017 (yet crucially, in classic Gatland style, held the All Blacks to only twelve points), you will see that regardless of the front page snubs of Kyle Sinckler and Jonny Sexton, Warren can put eleven of those fifteen on the field in South Africa for the first test. Retirements (Sam Warburton, Sean O’Brien) and injury (Jon Davies and probably Sexton, because of his concussions) forced his hand. We could say he dropped nobody at all from his last hurrah. The Lions bench may be the point of difference from their last tour but will still likely feature pugnacious Courtney Lawes, who was the best English forward on the field in Yokohama in the final. Rassie has only lost Beast Mtawarira from his starting XV from that day. That is it. Steven Kitshoff is hardly a big drop off from that old warrior. Some of the 2015 starters (Handre Pollard, Eben Etzebeth, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Frans Malherbe, Damian de Allende, Willie le Roux, and Duane Vermuelen) played in the 2015 semifinal against one of the finest All Black teams of all time and lost by two points in the heavy rain. Adversity they know (Brighton, the dark days of 2016-2017), but they also know how to win, and expect to win anywhere in the world. Etzebeth has become Toulon’s favourite player, often slotting in at a terrifying blindside, De Allende has been remarkable for Munster, Vermuelen was South Africa’s player of the year most recently, le Roux is lighting up Japan, and du Toit played the full eighty for the Stormers upon his return. Malherbe is Malherbe. Rassie’s newer players (Makazole Mapimpi, Cheslin Kolbe, Lukhanyo Am, Faf de Klerk) are going well for their clubs. Malcolm Marx is probably the forward of the league in Japan. He can call upon Marcell Coetzee or the du Preez twins to play the part of Francois Louw off the bench. He will have the same three scrumhalves who excelled in the World Cup to choose from. His Bomb Squad might include Frans Steyn again (best back in the recent Currie Cup, and a 90 percent goalkicker), Wilco Louw (both dynamic in England at the moment), Ox Nche, and old standby, Franco Mostert, he who is never injured. Lood de Jager and RG Snyman look like they will win their race against time to make the squad, but there are several South African locks (no surprise: huge, mad, fast) the world has not seen much of who will fill in quite nicely, and will look down on all the Lions except Hill. As many as ten locks may be on the team sheets for test one, because PSDT is a lock, as is Lawes and Taidgh Bierne, and one would think Gatland has digested 2015, 2017, and 2019 and decided he needs two locks on a 6-2 bench, as well. The result may be the highest average height and weight in three tests, ever. The one glaring hole in the Lions team is at 13. Who can replace Jon Davies? Eliot Daly has struggled against the Boks lately. Chris Harris has not impressed as someone who could work out Kolbe or Am. A less serious problem is at 9: who is coming off the bench if Conor Murray shows his age and lack of pace against the dynamic Bok halfbacks, or is hurt? In the final test against the All Blacks, Gatland brought Rhys Webb on for Murray with eleven minutes to go. Is Gareth Davies that man? Finally, we come back to the tight five. Will they be enough? Can they produce enough mongrel? Will they miss James Ryan at lineout? Will they miss Jonny Gray on the tryline defense? Warren Gatland and Rassie Erasmus are locked in a defining duel: if Gatland loses again, it will look like his zenith was in 2017 and that he was declining ever since. If Rassie loses, he may look like a one-hit wonder. Win, and each will be seen as an all-time great. Let’s not even talk about draws. My sister says so.

I don’t disagree.. Sometimes it’s easy for some, myself included to not want to see the positives, but they certainly are there. Covid 19 aside which has wreaked its own havoc and not just in rugby, post World Cup SA Rugby so well positioned to soar.. I’m still impressed to see the avalanche of support clearly evident in black South Africans now embracing the game.. The truck driver in Johannesburg proudly wearing his Bok shirt.. The cashier in the supermarket with her Bok scarf.. These were images unimaginable 20 years ago but its prevalent now…I remain amazed.

This tit for tat is small minded.. The game is far bigger than a few individuals fragile egos.. And none come more fragile than South African sports administrators..

SA Rugby could not leave it alone either. They just casually let it slip out that NZ chickened out of facing the Boks in Dubai. They ran away and booked test with Fiji as cover story :laughing: Also interesting what Altmann Allers let slip about a second international comp lined up for our franchises.

CR .. we rented Barry Richards house for a week. The house overlooked Kings Park.. loved the country

Ahhh the HK Sevens, now Muzzo with hand on heart, tell me you really went there for the rugby, not for the Bars in the Wan Chai district :silly: Actually I’ve been to that tournament at least 4 times as well, started way before the sevens became popular and the World Series didn’t exist. But I can say that “apart from the rugby” I loved going to America’s Club Restaurant for their beggars chicken! Yum!! Actually come to think about we seemed to spend a lot of time in those damn bars as well!

Muzzo, you are definitely right in the regardless of how strong the Wallabies are, how resolute they Poms are, the Springboks remain our greatest challenge. I have no doubt that many if not most Saffa’s feel the same in reverse. There will be down times for both like when Whites team towelled the AB’s 3 zip or the failings of Coetzee but mate the side that is down bounces back, time after time that happens. I just love those contests. You talk about 2013, well i shot over to Eden Park to see the contest between these two great rugby nations only to have felt cheated that the AB’s won because Bismark du Plessis was wrongly sent off (well wrongly YC for his hit on the one and only Dan Carter). I really felt it ruined the contest and you know how one eyed I am on supporting the men in black. The entire seemed hollow to me. I recall discussion on the Roar after that.