History beckons for a new generation of South African rugby internationals in being the first Springboks to win successive Tests in Australia in the same year.
Admittedly, the opportunities to win a series, two or more Tests, have been negligible, with the 1993, 2009, 2021 and 2022 Springboks the only two squads given a crack at this history.
The 1993 series, played over three Tests in Sydney (first and third) and Brisbane’s Ballymore Ground, saw the Boks stun then world champion Wallabies in Sydney before losing the next two Tests.
In 2021, Siya Kolisi’s 2019 World Cup winners were expected to wallop a struggling Wallabies outfit, but the Wallabies edged the first Test on Brisbane’s Gold Coast with the last kick of the game, a penalty from Quade Cooper, and a week later won comfortably at the SunCorp Stadium.
The Wallabies are at their lowest but will lean into the history of the rivalry in Perth, which has just favoured the hosts, despite the Test always being billed as a home match for the Springboks.
In the amateur era, the incomparable 1937 Bok squad won a series 2-0 in Australia on the way to becoming the first — and still only — Springboks to win a series (2-1) against the All Black on the second half of their tour Down Under. The 1956 and 1971 Springboks were also series winners in Australia.
The sport’s transition to a professionalism in 1996 dovetailed with the introduction of the Tri-Nations series (now the Rugby Championship) and Test matches between Australia and South Africa were played annually with one in Australia and one in South Africa.
This has changed in the most recent of years, and Perth on Saturday evening provides the backdrop to the possibility of more history for coach Rassie Erasmus and a match-day 23 that includes 14 squad members of the 2023 World Cup-winning Boks and several back-to-back World Cup winning Boks.
Pieter-Steph du Toit and Cheslin Kolbe are the most prominent duo from the 2019 and 2023 World Cup final starting line-ups. They are the only two who get to start Saturday’s Rugby Championship dance, with Erasmus having made 10 changes to the starting XV that won so handsomely at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane last Saturday.
The Boks produced a statement performance in winning 33-7, having led 33-0 with five minutes to play, despite being reduced to 13 players for the final 10 minutes.
Erasmus has been insistent he has not risked or gambled with making as many changes, and reiterated that there could never be disrespect to the opposition when the Boks match-day 23 includes 14 World Cup winners, and rightly points to the potency of the super substitutes’ bench made up of World Cup winners.
What Erasmus is using the Perth occasion for is to measure the newbie players’ ability to handle the pressures of starting away from home.
He has entrusted rookies in the starting 8, 9 and 10 jumpers, with the Bulls front row duo of Jan-Hendrik Wessels (loose head) and Johan Grobbelaar (hooker) in their first season of Test rugby. Ditto lock Ruan Nortje and scrumhalf Morne van den Berg.
Erasmus has raved about the depth of quality in his squad, and Perth will provide answers to the depth.
The Wallabies are at their lowest but will lean into the history of the rivalry in Perth, which has just favoured the hosts, despite the Test always being billed as a home match for the Springboks.
It is not quite the home Boks match many market it as, but it is always one heck of a tough match.
The two nations have battled in Perth nine times since the first Test in 1998, when the Boks won 14-13. The Wallabies have won four times, the Boks have three wins and twice the matches have ended in draws.
The Wallabies, on average over the nine matches, are 21-20 victors, and given the dire state of the Wallabies, they’d take a one-point win and run for the hills before there could be a TMO intervention.
The Boks, despite having so many World Cup winners, albeit in a different match-day capacity, would also settle for a one-point win. Given they won every 2023 World Cup play-off match by a point, the Boks, more than any other side, appreciate the saying that you only need one more point than the opposition.
I have the Boks to create a new chapter of history, to win the Test, and to win it by a record margin in Perth. The biggest Australian win against the Boks in Perth is by seven points and the biggest Boks win against the Wallabies in Perth is by seven points.
On Saturday this will change.
The Boks will win by 15 and become series winners for the first time in Australia since South Africa’s return from international rugby isolation in 1992.
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