The win percentage post Apartheid is 64%. I don’t know where you got the figure of 50%.

Fact remains they’ve only played 8 and have won 4 of them. No matter how badly you wish it wasn’t so. You can’t count them for having competed in two tournaments when they didn’t actually compete. That’s just silly.

Both of these are facts:

— There have been 10 World Cups, of which 4 have been won by South Africa.

— South Africa has played in 8 World Cups and have won 4 of them. They have won half of all the World Cups they’ve ver been in.

New Zealand are first when it comes to many things, but your claim that they were the first to do “almost all things” is a bit ignorant and factually incorrect. These are just a few things you might have missed:

— Australia was the first team to win a World Cup away from home, not New Zealand.
— Australia was the first southern team to win a World Cup in Europe.
— Australia was the first team to win two World Cups.
— South Africa was the first team to win four World Cups
— South Africa was the first team to win the World Cup and Rugby Championship in the same year.
— South Africa was the first team to win World Cups in three different continents.
— South Africa was the first team to win a World Cup despite losing a pool game.
— South Africa was the first team between the two to win a series away from home.
— South Africa won the first ever meeting between the two teams in a World Cup.
— South Africa was the first to win a playoff match in the World Cup between the two.
— South Africa was the first to win a grand final match between the two.
— South Africa was the first team from the southern hemisphere to win a Grand Slam up north.

There are more, but I’m sure you get the point. The All Blacks did many things first, but not most things, not by a long shot.

South Africa is obsessed with winning the World Cup simply because it’s the grand prize in rugby. There is nothing bigger. Combined with the legacy and culture that was born regarding the tournament in 1995 and you have your answer. It really is that simple. It’s the most coveted prize in rugby.

You seem to have thought a bit too much on it. Your hypothesis that we want to win World Cups as a means of getting back at you for not having competed in the first two is backed up by what? What has ever been done or said to lend that hypothesis any credibility? Certainly I’ve never seen anything from anyone in green and gold to suggest that. All I ever see is talk of the country and the people.

Not so sure about that.

When it comes to 2019 I’ve seen a lot more talk of 32-12 than 19-7.

New Zealand is the best rugby playing country in history.

South Africa is the best World Cup team in history.

I would say that is pretty accurate.

“The Boks clearly value the World Cup above all else. Maybe this is born from being excluded from the first couple? Maybe this is about showing a middle finger to the world that for so long ostracised and isolated them? The line that they don’t care what the world thinks doesn’t ring true.”

Don’t know how you got to those conclusions. The Springboks are obsessed with winning the World Cup because of 1995. More accurately, what 1995 meant to the country. It’s the highest prize you can win in rugby, and we won the first one we played in.

Respectfully, it has nothing to do with you or any other country. The World Cup means something within the country’s culture, it’s what all rugby narratives in South Africa comes back to. The Rugby Championship is nice, but even in the years we’ve won it, it has never had the same effect. The Rugby Championship, in the eyes of many South Africans, is pretty much irrelevant.

The goal of the Springboks mirrors the desires of the country. And this country only really desires the World Cup.

Not only was rugby built on the foundations of the set piece, you could also make the argument that kicking at goal is in the true spirit of rugby.

The reason we call a try a try is because, originally, dotting the ball down over the opposition line granted you a “try at goal”. Indeed, tries weren’t even worth any points. They were just one of the ways you could go for posts.

Kind of destroys the whole narrative of rugby being all about tries, doesn’t it?

Eventually your own logic will disprove your point. What you call an “easy run” was simply the Springboks beating whoever beat New Zealand or New Zealand’s opponents.

New Zealand beat Ireland in their quarter-final. South Africa beat the team that beat Ireland in the pool. You can harp on about how New Zealand had a “tough” quarter against Ireland all you like, but given Ireland’s result against Japan and New Zealand, you could hardly call the 2019 Irish team one of the stronger teams in the tournament.

And, of course, South Africa annihilated the same England that annihilated New Zealand. You can hardly blame South Africa if New Zealand wasn’t good enough to qualify for the final, can you?

I believe it may become the norm, only due to the margins being closer than ever these days. Unless we have a dominant force arising next year I think the days of one team permanently leading the pack are over.

Without question.

Used to be, Old Bugger.

France had their own unbeaten year in 2022, winning 13 from 13.

Well, they had beaten England on their way to a Grand Slam in 2019. If memory serves, I believe they were ranked first going into the World Cup as well, or just before?

It’s amazing how underrated the 2019 Welsh side was and still is. I guess they would have to be just to keep this kind of narrative alive.

That would be a valid criticism in my view. Personally, that’s what prevents me from putting the 2019 – 2023 Springboks in the same bracket as the 2011 – 2015 All Blacks.

Japan 19 – 12 Ireland says otherwise.

But let’s not have the facts get in the way of your narrative.

“South Africans were not happy with the Lions game plan (Warren Ball might also be to blame?)”

It’s amazing how everyone either forgets or refuses to acknowledge that the Lions played a dour style of rugby as well.

That series ended up 2-1 with the Springboks scoring the most tries, all of them by the backs. The Lions scored only 2 tries, both of them from mauls.

A shame, because if you continued reading you would also have seen that Japan had beaten New Zealand’s quarter-final opponents just a few weeks prior.

Who really had the tougher game?

A quick look at all 7 games between the Springboks and the All Blacks since 2021 will also show that both teams have scored 15 tries apiece as well Harry.

Rassie’s busy developing hybrid forwards to achieve this as we speak. Take players like Damian de Allende and André Esterhuizen, for example, and send them to the forwards school of hard knocks, see what emerges from the other side.

“As I said, they did enough to ‘not lose’ the World Cup”

You either win or you lose. When you score more points than the opposition, you win.

When the opposition scores more points than you, you lose.

Headlines won’t read: “The Springboks did not lose the World Cup final”, it will read: “The Springboks have won the World Cup final.”

This isn’t directed solely to you. I suppose it’s just a general annoyance of mine whenever I read statements like “team X didn’t win this game, team Y lost it”. Only half of that statement is true. Factually, the team with more points is the team that wins. The other one lost it. End of discussion.

Agree with pretty much the rest of your comments though.

Never understood how people could claim that 2019 was the easiest run to the final in World Cup history.

The Springboks played Japan in the quarter-finals. The same Japan that dumped Scotland from the group stages and beat the same Ireland that New Zealand got in their quarter-finals. So New Zealand had a tough one, but South Africa got an easy one?

The Springboks played Wales in the semi-finals. The same Wales that was touted their best in history that beat the Wallabies in pool play and had won that year’s Six Nations tournament. They had also beaten France.

The Springboks played England in the final. The same England that eliminated both Australia and New Zealand in the playoffs and dumped out Argentina in the pools.

How was this the easiest run?

People probably all said the same thing in all the years we won the World Cup. Apparently, rugby union has died four times already.

Rugby Union and its running game will be fine.

A far more conservative Springbok side won the World Cup in 2019. France and Ireland both responded by opening up their games in different ways. New Zealand did what they always do. All three of those teams had success against South Africa, especially Ireland. Scotland have been upgrading the sexiness of their rugby for years.

Just relax. No one’s going to change the way they play to emulate South Africa, no matter how effective it is in World Cups. The only thing that really caught on from 2019 was the 6-2, and it wasn’t even used that often.

Not bad.

Agree and disagree on the whole regarding your sentiments. I believe it just depends on the context of the discussion. There is what the world outside South Africa thinks and sees regarding this Springbok team, and there is what South Africa and the team itself thinks and sees, and therein lies the rub.

Regardless of what anyone may think about Rassie Erasmus and the 2023 Springboks, they’ve always been crystal clear about one thing since they’ve taken over in 2018: they care and concern themselves only with what they call “the main thing”, which is winning the World Cup for South Africa and making the country proud.

They don’t play to any demographic other than the one they always have, the ones already wearing green and gold. And in that sense their legacy will live on forever, because in their view the only ones who matter already think they’re the best team in history. What the rest of the world thinks is irrelevant.

In the lead-up to the final Kwagga Smith was asked the following question:

Question: “You’ve won the last World Cup. You’ve won the recent Lions tour of 2021. Now you’re in another World Cup final. Do you think that the Springboks get the respect they deserve for all those achievements in the wider world?”

Answer: “We don’t play for people to respect us. We play for each other, and we play for South Africa. We just want to make the people back home proud of this team.”

That was pretty much just confirmation of what I said above, but this also isn’t anything new. The Springboks have never been popular. In many cases they’re never really rated either. Common perception has always been that the Springboks are big, strong, physical and cynical. Their players are always limited and possess a weak skillset, but they’re very good at what they do. All of their World Cups were won off the back of luck, an easy route, teams peaking at the wrong times, poisoning, or rugby’s laws being flawed and in need of being rectified.

Neither the 1995, 2007, 2019 or now 2023 teams are remembered fondly compared to those of New Zealand, Australia, or even England’s, and that’s fine. It’s completely understandable. I’m not mentioning this to win sympathy or respect. I’m not posting this to change anyone’s mind either.

It simply is what it is, and I think the Springboks know and embrace that, even when their own fans don’t. The down side to this mentality is that when you stop winning your fans quickly turn against you, and honestly when that happens no one can criticize the Springboks quite like their own fans do.

Springbok rugby has never aligned well with the global rugby consciousness. They’re not as an attractive a sell as the All Blacks, because their goals are fundamentally different. Neither of them are wrong, but they do put a premium on different things. South Africa isn’t too concerned with selling their brand beyond their own borders, because they know they simply have to win to win the hearts of their supporters.

Even the 2009 team you seem to rate so highly was torn apart in the Aussie media before their last game against the Wallabies in Perth of that year’s Tri-Nations. It was said that they only relied on Morne Steyn’s boot to get results and that they couldn’t win by scoring tries. Of course, they then went on to win the game by scoring 4 tries just to prove a point, and even that result was met with scepticism by the Aussie and Kiwi media.

In short you are correct. I don’t imagine the rest of the world will ever look at the 2019 to 2023 Springboks fondly, and neither should they. If the Springboks truly play an egregiously terrible brand of rugby in your opinion, and if you fundamentally disagree with their tactics, then that is absolutely your right just as it is your right to never rate them.

Just know that no amount of negativity or dismissal will ever change South African rugby. In South Africa, they are already adored and idolized. That’s the only thing they really care about.