It is that favourite week in every South African rugby supporter’s year when we all get to play national selector in debating the makeup of the first Springboks match 23 for the international season.
What makes this year’s one extra special is that the world champion Springboks are playing Ireland, Six Nations winners and ranked second in the world. The Irish are the only team Rassie Erasmus’s back-to-back World Cup winners have not beaten between 2018 and 2023.
Granted, the teams only met twice; once in Dublin in 2022 when the Boks lost 19-16, and in the pool match at the 2023 World Cup in Paris, when the Irish won 13-8.
In both matches the Boks missed points through kicks. In both matches each team scored just the one try.
In both matches, it was not an absolute necessity for victory. The Dublin Test was a one-off and part of the end-of-year wind down for the Boks.
In Paris, the match that mattered would be the respective quarterfinals.
Now it matters — and it matters a lot because Ireland in South Africa in the first fortnight of July is a two-Test series, which means history is at play.
Ireland has only ever won one Test match against the Springboks in South Africa, at Newlands in the opener of a three-Test series in 2016. In the most bizarre circumstances Ireland won despite being a player down to a red card after just 20 minutes.
The Boks recovered to win the next two Tests and the series. The following year, in 2017, the Boks would be humiliated 38-3 in Dublin.
The Boks are the world champions, in 2019 and 2023. Ireland has not made it past the World Cup quarterfinals in 10 attempts.
Whenever the Irish beat their chests, the response from Bok supporters is for them to check their World Cup history. There is also the reminder the Boks have beaten the All Blacks 40 times in their history.
The Irish response has been, world champion or not, your team is second to ours.
It makes for fiery social media exchanges, but the Boks at Loftus, on July 6 and in Durban on July 13, are defending a century of Springboks rugby history in South Africa, as much as Ireland will be chasing changing history in South Africa.
This is a Test series the Boks want to win and must win.
Experimentation can come in the Rugby Championship. New blood can be introduced in that competition because all teams get to go again next season.
Ireland, for me, is as big a Test series as the British & Irish Lions was in 2021.
It is because of this that I would want the most experienced Springbok match 23 on duty in Pretoria.
The whispers coming out of the Bok training camp is that Manie Libbok will start at flyhalf and not World Cup saviour Handré Pollard.
Libbok’s game-breaking attributes have been lauded within the Bok coaching structures and they see the positives in what Libbok can offer on attack as stronger than any missed goal-kicking opportunities.
The opposite is true for me and also may be so for many Bok supporters. No Pollard and no back-to-back World Cup titles and no Chasing the Sun 2.
Goal-kicking is non-negotiable at Test level. We saw that when the Boks kicked for 11 points in Paris against Ireland and got no return.
The Boks won the play-offs, each of the three matches by one point, because Pollard did not miss a kick. He had ice in his veins.
Goal-kicking is non-negotiable at Test level. We saw that when the Boks kicked for 11 points in Paris against Ireland and got no return.
Pollard is the general at No 10 and he would always be my pick in the clutch Test matches, if he is available. Similarly Siya Kolisi as captain.
Kolisi will start and captain the side. Erasmus confirmed this to the media.
The team will only be made public early next week, but in this game of playing selector, as every South African rugby supporter loves to do, this is the run-on XV I believe will lay the foundation for the Boks to win the first Test and restore order in the showdowns with Ireland.
Willie le Roux at fullback, the master collective, a fit Cheslin Kolbe on the one wing and the experienced finisher Makazole Mapimpi on the other, if the feeling is Kurt-Lee Arendse needs another week of recovery.
The midfield comprises Jesse Kriel at No 13 and Damian de Allende on his inside, with Pollard the No 10. Faf de Klerk, if fit, at No 9, with Cobus Reinach to start if Faf is not considered.
Kwagga Smith is my No 8 in the absence of the retired Duane Vermeulen and suspended Jasper Wiese. He then shifts to flank when Kolisi has emptied the tank after 50 minutes. Pieter-Steph du Toit completes the back row, with Evan Roos providing impact off the bench.
The locks are Eben Etzebeth and Franco Mostert with Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Frans Malherbe the starting front row. Bongi Mbonambi rotates only because this is Marx’s second match back in nine months and logic says let him play the opening half rather than risk injury to Bongi early on.
The substitutes bench is likely a six-two split, and the bold move would be to pick Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu as the utility option and Grant Williams as the No 9 backup.
The options are plenty, but the key selection is at No 10.
The word is Libbok will get the first start of the season, with Pollard the insurance policy.
It sounds too familiar for comfort.
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