The Springboks - who are the defending champions - go into the tournament carrying pretty much the same baggage that resultedin Australia (in 2003) and England (in 2007) coming closest to defending their titles, losing in their finals.

The main problem for all the defending champions has been retaining the right number of the original winning team for the new putsch, and getting enough new players to complement that core.

Because nobody in their right minds would dismantle a winning team right away, the waiting period most coaches hope is sufficient to weed out those who are past it is usually about two years.

In that time teams either hit their peak, convincing the coach to press on, or leave him with too little time to assemble a new team when they prove to be past it.

The handicaps facing the Boks are both external and internal.

The external issues are simply the competition and the game everybody else is playing at the tournament.

If the All Blacks again fail to win the World Cup, it will be proof that the rugby gods have favourites and don't actually love the game.

It is impossible to love rugby without liking the All Blacks.

So if the rugby gods again snatch victory from Graham Henry's men - in their own backyard and after the misery of the Christchurch earthquake - then their traditionally wicked sense of humour will take on a slightly darker tone.

The Wallabies are about the same age and have roughly the same number of caps between them that the Boks did in France four years ago.

From an internal perspective, seldom has a team been more insistent on doing exactly the same things that won them the title as the Boks have been.

Usually, the defending champions at least sell you rhetoric about going out to win the damned thing all over again. Not so the Boks; they are going to defend.

To those ends, they have gone as far as possible to replicate the same coaching staff, the same playing staff, not to mention dusting off the same game plan.

The fresh pairs of coaching eyes brought in are Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber.

Erasmus was there in 2007 and Nienaber has brought back the rush defence.

For Frans Steyn in 2007 you can pencil in another utility back with blond curly hair, Pat Lambie.

Heck, the Boks have even roped in Odwa Ndungane as the twin to bring them good luck in the same way his brother Akona did four years ago.

Other than the fact that they have done it before, there isn't a particularly good reason why the Boks are going to win it again.

This means they will need even more luck than the bounce of the ball against Tonga, JP Pietersen's miracle tackle against Fiji, and the draw parting like the Red Sea in 2007, to win.

For a team that has had Hollywood script written all over its progress since Jake White told a bunch of disbelieving young men they would be world champions in 2004, it would be one indulgent step too far by the rugby gods.

But the Boks have worked incredibly hard on their defence, the breakdown, the rolling maul and executing that kick and chase well, areas which make a team hard to beat in tournament rugby.