With the Springboks' end of year tour Tests now confirmed, the picture of what is in their path in their first year as double world champions is complete.
World champion teams usually have a sizeable target on their backs and it will be no different for the Boks as they try to strut their stuff lumped with the official title as the best team on the planet. They can expect that to be hotly disputed much like the Bok teams of 1995, 2007 and 2019 discovered after they held the Webb Ellis Cup aloft.
In their first season after RWC success, the Springboks traditionally suffered midseason wobbles against the All Blacks and the Wallabies, but have always bounced back the same year on their November tours.
The World Cup winning team of 1995 was already put to the test by the time the 1996 international season kicked off. Their first engagement after claiming their first World Cup crown was an end of year tour that saw them beat Wales, Italy and England convincingly.
They did that though they were already a team in transition as only three forwards returned in the same position in which they started the RWC final against the All Blacks when they ran out against Wales.
By the time they played Fiji in the first Test of 1996 only eight starters from the RWC final were selected in the same positions. Moreover, RWC winning coach Kitch Christie was no longer in charge.
It was a year in which trouble ran deep for the Springboks. Though they won eight of their 13 Tests that year, the All Blacks exacted the ultimate revenge for their RWC final defeat by claiming a maiden series win on South African soil. They beat the Boks four times that year, though the world champs who had also changed their captain, rallied well to win their last six Tests before the season closed.
On their end of year tour they played two Tests against Los Pumas in Argentina before they made the trek north for two Tests against France and one against Wales. They won them all.
John Smit's world champions also had a change of coach the year after they claimed the RWC. Five weeks after their triumph in Paris, the Boks did, however, take on and beat Wales in a one-off Test to close the season.
Much like 1996, the Boks sported a fresh look under a new coach. Only four RWC final starters from 2007 was in Peter de Villiers' first starting line-up against Wales.
That number rose to eight by the time they played their first Tri-Nations Test against the All Blacks as De Villiers increasingly leant on the tried and tested.
In the six Tests against Australia and New Zealand, the Boks won just two that year. As was the case in 1996, however, the Boks rebounded from their Tri-Nations trauma and finished the year strongly.
On their end of year tour they edged Wales and Scotland before delivering a performance of fist-thumping authority against England whom they vanquished 42-6. It was one of the Boks' finest performances with De Villiers as head coach.
The Boks face the same end of year roster this season.
They were initially denied the opportunity to bask in the glory of being the 2019 RWC champions. They lost the entire 2020 to Covid but they returned to the fray in 2021 with a fight for survival series win over the British & Irish Lions.
They narrowly won that acrid series but again the world champions struggled to assert themselves against their foes from the south and won just one of their four Tests against New Zealand and Australia in the Rugby Championship.
This year the Springboks' need to rebuild their ageing squad may be moved to the back burner as their credentials as the game's top-ranked team will come under severe threat when Ireland tour midyear. Ireland are on a mission to topple the Boks and secure a maiden series win on South African soil. The Boks will be on high alert but history tells us the newly crowned world champions struggle to beat off all their challengers. Like in 1996, the All Blacks tour here for multiple Tests with their defeat in the RWC final still stinging.
The Boks' mission this year is clear: to be the undisputed top team, they need home wins over Ireland and the All Blacks.
