This recently completed tour to Britain, France, Italy and Ireland was partly about the present, but mostly it's been geared towards the future.
Against Italy there were three new caps, which captain John Smit admitted was as rare as hens' teeth in a single game over the past five years. Yesterday Bulls flank Dewald Potgieter earned his first Test cap to bring the tour tally to four.
Coach Peter de Villiers cast his net wide to begin the process of filling the inevitable voids that will be left by the post-2011 departure of players such as Smit, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Juan Smith, Schalk Burger, Fourie du Preez, Bryan Habana and Jaque Fourie.
Regardless of the results, the coach, senior players and balanced observers believed it was a worthwhile exercise.
"You only look back if you want to go in that direction," De Villiers said. "We have no intention of going in that direction."
The form of the midweek 'dirt-trackers' was arguably the most important dimension of the tour and while they struggled collectively, individually there was enough evidence to remain positive.
Losses to Leicester (22-17) and Saracens (24-23) at a glance scream "failure". The reality is that more was gained than lost.
Make no mistake, when the core of this wonderful era of Bok players is decimated by retirements and a northern hemisphere exodus in 2012, there will be a painful transition. But because the foundation towards that moment has been laid over the past month, the changeover period will hopefully be quick, and with limited haemorrhaging.
"You don't know what will happen in the future so by giving players such as Jean Deysel a chance in the Test arena you can sleep a lot better at night knowing they can stand up to the challenge," De Villiers said.
"There were a lot of players left at home for this tour that could just as easily been on it. I believe we could choose another competitive Test side with the unlucky ones. My long-term goal for younger players is to gain valuable experience and the guys that came on this particular tour benefitted for the future, especially when we need them after 2011."
De Villiers did concede that there were some mistakes in terms of the planning and execution of the tour.
"It was tiring working with 37-players and we might look to change the way we manage that next time by perhaps breaking them up into two separate travelling squads," De Villiers said.
"We lost some games on the scoreboard but we won much more from this tour. A guy like Juan de Jongh stood up for himself and Earl Rose proved he knows the game and can play at the highest level.
"Deysel, Potgieter and others have come through. Of course other players haven't quite made the step up, but at least we know who they are and they know what they need to do to become better players."
The obvious winners from the tour are the four players who survived the cut when the squad was reduced from 37 to 26 players. Deysel, Potgieter, prop Wian du Preez and utility back Francois Hougaard clearly did enough for the coach to have a closer look. But others such as Rose, De Jongh and scrumhalf Heini Adams didn't harm their cause either despite going home early.
Although De Villiers would not name names, it's obvious that players such as flank Davon Raubenheimer, lock Alistair Hargreaves, hooker Bandise Maku and fullback Riaan Viljoen still have some development to go through before they're asked to tour again.
There were also the poor selections of prop Heinke van der Merwe and hooker Chiliboy Ralepelle. The former hadn't played in six months and the latter shouldn't have toured because of a foot injury.
But a few minor mistakes aside, this tour was a necessary and largely successful exercise. The benefits though, might be seen only in a few years, because forward is the only direction for these Springboks.
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