Why SA and All Blacks’ monopoly continues at Rugby World Cup

Paris — It has been 20 years since a team other than SA and New Zealand have had their hands on the game’s most coveted prize. Irrespective of the result in Saturday’s Rugby World Cup (RWC) final, SA and New Zealand’s southern hemisphere monopoly on the cup will be stretched at least four more years.

Apart from sharing a rich and excellence-driven rugby history, SA and New Zealand have set themselves apart in the way they go about their business at the RWC. They may suffer setbacks in between World Cups, but they never lose sight of the prize that matters.

The more they excel at the World Cup, the more they institutionalise their ability to deliver top performances across the seven weeks of the tournament. You do not have to win every game to win the cup, as this tournament will again illustrate, but you have to be up for the matches that matter. Both have done that in France this year.

The cup goes to the team that stays the course and does not get thrown off it by the game’s many vicissitudes. The Springboks have a fresh obstacle this week at hooker, and their ability to put their best foot forward in that position is a challenge.

Of course, the latter stages of the RWC are about the weight the names on the respective team sheets carry, but equally its about what shape they are in.

On that score, the All Blacks’ first taste of this tournament lingered like the smelliest fromage appears to have re-established meaningful connections with what they do best.

Players who might have been short of a gallop when they lost to France in the tournament opener are not just back in the fold, they crucially are less likely to suffer fatigue.

“There are two parts to that — there are the bodies, but looking at how we’re tracking, we have 33 fit men,” reminded All Blacks defence coach Scott McLeod. “A number of those guys have come back from injury lately so they haven’t felt the full wear and tear of the tournament and they actually feel quite fresh,” said McLeod.

Head coach Ian Foster was keen to point out their props, Ethan de Groot and Tyler Lomax, who suffered a bad cut against the Boks in their RWC warm-up game at Twickenham, are only now hitting their stride.

“And when parts of your game work through the quarterfinal and semifinal week, you get belief out of that, that is also a mental freshness. That is not something that drains you. Mentally and physically we are ready for this. We are excited. We probably have to hold the boys a little bit,” said McLeod.

Though their opening day clash against France ended in stinging defeat in a match that mattered, it is the chastening defeat they suffered against the Boks in a warm-up clash that probably lingered longer with the All Blacks.

McLeod talked it down as a source of gut-felt motivation. “Not so much in a motivational aspect, more in terms of scenarios and how we respond. So, we took learning out of that, particularly when we were down to 13 men, how we want to play the game. It’s shown throughout the tournament that we’ve had a few cards and I think we have shown that we have learnt through that.”

The Boks and All Blacks go into Saturday’s final having each won a match against the other this year. The fact that there is little to choose between them does not stop there.

Since the last RWC they have played each other six times and have recorded three wins each.

On both occasions in their two most recent matches the team that stole the march on the other went on to win the match.

“It’s no secret both teams will be focusing on the first 20 minutes, I’d imagine,” said McLeod. “We have talked about that this morning. We will need to be extremely accurate, show touches that we want to show and be able to apply pressure at the same time. The Boks have always come out wanting to start well and we will take our lessons from that.”