Rugby is a motivational game. You need a reason. Not every weekend, but every couple of months. Like every professional athlete, you need to circle a date on the calendar when you’re going to peak … and then be judged against the results.
For this next-gen, “Tonyball” Springbok team, next Saturday in Paris is that reason. And so is the Saturday in Dublin two weeks after that.
Despite ticking virtually every other box on their demanding coach’s to-do list, Rassie Erasmus’ new-look Boks are probably 0/1 in terms of winning when it counts so far this year.
At the start of the 2025 season, three dates would have been non-negotiable high-performance events: challenging the All Blacks’ 50-match win streak at Eden Park, meeting a vengeful France in a replay of the otherworldly 2023 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal at Stade de France, and travelling to Ireland to play the only team who currently enjoy proper bragging rights against the world champions.
That first assignment in New Zealand ended in a 24-17 defeat. The next Springbok reality check is six days away.
Happily, the Boks are in a good place after swatting aside Japan 61-7 in London on Saturday.
Yes, losing prop Ox Nche to a leg injury for the rest of the five-match tour is a blow to the Springbok forward pack spirit animal. But also, yes, in Gerhard Steenekamp and Thomas du Toit the Boks have more than adequate replacements. Without Ox, perhaps the South African scrum won’t take as many dominant steps forward but neither should they go backwards.
Maybe Japan were never in the physical contest, but you can only play what’s in front of you. And in their least favourite, wet weather conditions, there was a lot to like about the Springbok game.
Six Japan-based players got a vital run-out, and the youngest Bok prop in the professional era came through his debut unscathed. Lood de Jager and RG Snyman are building up a formidable head of steam in the locking department, and the loose trio has good balance, with current world-player-of-year Pieter-Steph du Toit set to return to the fray.
After a head knock against the Brave Blossoms, there’s a question mark over the fitness of winger Ethan Hooker, which makes Kurt-Lee Arendse’s two-try, instant return to form all the more reassuring.
Will Springbok forward power dominate and physically damage France all day long? Or will more Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu magic dust be enough to bedazzle and run Les Bleu off their feet? The answer is no. And no.
Erasmus’ preferred combo of half-backs for the France game remains to be seen, but the evidence suggests that the Springbok playmakers are starting to find the golden mean between risk-based attack and risk-averse Springbok staples such as waves of hard-carrying forwards or launching a barrage of contestable high kicks.
The so-called “Tonyball” remains a work in progress, but the work is certainly progressing.
After the win against Japan, coach Rassie cautioned that his team knows what lies ahead. By that Erasmus means the cauldron of hostility that will be the Stade de France, and a French team worked up into a frenzy by the prospect of revenge for the crushing blow of being dumped out of their own World Cup by a single point two years ago.
But France too are in a very good place. Les Bleus are the reigning Six Nations champions and, more impressively, thrashed Ireland 42-27 in Dublin in March.
While his pedigree players were enjoying some R&R in July, coach Fabien Galthié sent a second- or third-string team to New Zealand for a three-Test tour and, albeit in a losing cause, produced a series full of quality and drama.
Will Springbok forward power dominate and physically damage France all day long? Or will more Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu magic dust be enough to bedazzle and run Les Bleu off their feet? The answer is no. And no.
To win against this French team in this mood in Paris, just like last time, the Boks will have to be willing to take it to the gutter.
South Africa will also have to kick their goals, consistently be tactically smarter and, just like last time, they will have to produce freakish moments of player brilliance (such as Cheslin Kolbe’s charge-down of Thomas Ramos’ conversion).
As always, dealing with potentially Kafka-esque levels of law interpretation by the match officials will remain a professional hazard.
Mostly, though, the Boks are going to have to pitch up emotionally.
Win, and the finest skipper in Springbok history will never forget what should be his 100th Test match.
Lose? Well, in two weeks’ time Siya Kolisi’s men can take their frustrations out on Ireland, the only team who beat the Boks at the last Rugby World Cup.
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