Seldom can a Rugby World Cup (RWC) quarterfinal have seen quite so much at stake. On Sunday at 9pm in Paris, two teams will kick off a match that’s about sport — and so much more.
The Springboks have spent four years building towards the retention of their 2019 Rugby World Cup crown earned in Yokohama. Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber have done that methodically, but there are question marks over whether the attacking dimensions they have added have seen the Boks stray too far from the tried and tested brutality that has won them three World Cups, including in Japan.
Sunday's quarterfinal at Stade de France will provide the clearest answer yet.
France have spent six years since the surprising announcement in London in 2017 that they would host the 2023 RWC building a team that could shed their reputation for beauty and recklessness over winning sensibility, which could lift the trophy on home soil. They have built well.
South Africa’s bid was the one recommended by World Rugby’s analysis team to host this RWC, which was what caused eyebrows to rise at the choice of France, adding some spice to Sunday night’s encounter.
A war in Ukraine that has drifted off the front pages and Israel’s latest conflict with Hamas, which has grabbed the most recent headlines, remind us that sport remains a sideshow to the real problems faced by so many.
Sport, for those of us not at the nexus, and even some who are, of catastrophe in an overpopulated world hurtling towards — and attempting to find solutions to — the horrors spawned as by-products of the industrial and technological age, can offer enjoyment and relief.
So it has its place of importance, though that should never supersede or be allowed to wash over real issues.
Losing a World Cup soccer title is one kind of problem; having a national football team that due to years of administrative ineptitude has declined — to the point that reaching an Africa Cup of Nations and hopefully being competitive there is seen as a positive step — is quite another
Problematic governments in both France and South Africa might try to harness sporting success as a distraction to their deficiencies. That should not detract from the genuine relief the heroes of Les Bleus or the Boks can bring to ordinary people.
On Sunday, two countries meet on a sports field who are far separated on the global economic spectrum, but have similarities in that, in a troubled world, they have experienced their share of societal upheaval.
Of course, comparing the problems of France, a former colonial power whose foreign policy and influence especially in Africa remains controversial, to those of South Africa, a former colony still reeling from the effects of empire and its brutal spin-off, apartheid, is a matter of chalk and cheese. Still, the fromage in both has mould, and people in France long for some sporting cheer — after losing their title to Argentina in the 2022 Fifa World Cup final in Qatar 11 months ago — about as much as those in South Africa.
Perhaps the gap in the scale of problems, and South Africa’s relative decline in some sporting codes, means we could do with some cheer that bit more. Losing a World Cup soccer title is one kind of problem; having a national football team that due to years of administrative ineptitude has declined — to the point that reaching an Africa Cup of Nations and hopefully being competitive there is seen as a positive step — is quite another. Just to make a point on the scale of problems.
But yes, on Sunday two proud rugby nations have so much to lose. An exit as hosts for France would be as deflating as ceding the world champion title would be for South Africa. It’s the beauty, and the cruelty, of sport at the level of a World Cup that there can be only one winner in a quarterfinal to fight another day, while the other picks itself up, dusts off the covering of devastating disappointment and begins the process of figuring out how to recapture the glory.
What a nerve-racking 80 minutes it will be, from Paris to Parys.
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