Boks to stick to mix-and-match policy that brought World Cup triumph

They can’t exactly replicate the blueprint that yielded success in the Rugby Championship (RC) and the Rugby World Cup (RWC) in 2019, but the Springboks are not about to ignore the key pointers that helped put the spring in their step to the top of the rugby world.

They go into this international season in far better shape than they did at the start of 2019, when a 50% win record cast a shadow of doubt over their RWC prospects.

Eight wins and five defeats last year puts them in better standing and it helps that the World Champions have now been together for five years, though a year was lost to the pandemic.

They can take some valuable lessons from 2019, the most useful of which from a RC perspective is their division of labour as they try to limit the travails of travel across the time zones.

This year their assault on the RC could be dictated by the delicate balance they have to strike in their opening two matches against Australia and New Zealand.

They have distinct home comforts when they take on the Wallabies in Pretoria, a city in which they have gone unbeaten in the seven Tests played there against the two-time World champs. If Pretoria has been an ally against the Wallabies then their assignment the next week against the All Blacks cannot be more daunting.

They face the All Blacks in Auckland, a city where they last tasted success against the hosts in 1937.

The match however, will not be played at the All Blacks’ Eden Park fortress but rather at the Mount Smart Stadium, home of Rugby League outfit the New Zealand Warriors.

After the Bok team for the Test against the Wallabies is announced next Tuesday, it is their intention to fly out 15 players either that day or the next. That group, director of rugby Rassie Erasmus explained, might be smaller depending what the team’s needs are in preparation for the Loftus Test.

Some of the Springboks’ conditioning and medical staff will accompany that group to Auckland.

Jet lag

Directly after the Loftus Test, some of the coaches will depart for Auckland, while the rest of the squad will depart the next day.

The hope is that the advance party would have shaken off the debilitating effects of jet leg and that only a small group of players who started in Johannesburg will do so in Auckland.

In 2019 their mixing and matching got the job done as Eben Etzebeth captained the team at Ellis Park, while Duane Vermeulen held the reins in Wellington. They will again have different captains on the highveld and in New Zealand a week later.

Against the Wallabies at Ellis Park in 2019 they started with an all-Jantjies halfback combination, S’bu Nkosi was on the wing, Warrick Gelant at fullback, while Francois Louw wore the No 8 jersey.

Only Etzebeth, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Faf de Klerk and Makazole Mapimpi were recalled as starters the next week as the Boks earned a 16-all result, again leaving the New Zealand capital unbeaten.

The Boks will be guided by similar principles in their selection now but their hand will also be partly forced by injury. Handré Pollard is out of the RC, which means Manie Libbok and Elton Jantjies may be the designated flyhalves for the Wallabies clash. Damian Willemse, who is expected to be fit by next week may be part of the advance party that travels to New Zealand next week.

The Boks also look set to take on the Wallabies without Etzebeth but he is likely to see combat against New Zealand.

Erasmus explained they will have to determine which players can stand up to the demands of playing on consecutive weekends. “Players are built differently and can take different workloads,” he said semicryptically.

Either way, their selections in the next fortnight will help crystallise what the Bok RWC squad will look like.