Boks far more than daunting hulks

The Springboks are wellpositioned to defend their World Cup title in France in 2023 — World Cup style, which doesn’t mean South African or Springboks rugby should be stereotyped as being one giant low-risk way of playing.

Perception is often presented as fact and the perception is that the Springboks can only succeed when their forwards are physically imposing, their discipline is good, whoever kicks never misses a penalty and the ball rarely gets past No 9, let alone No 10.

The perception, for years, was that the finest All Blacks team in the professional era and possibly the history of the game, Richie McCaw’s back-to-back 2011 and 2015 World Cup title winners, played the most expansive and extravagant rugby.

The fact is McCaw’s All Blacks were wizards when they got the chance to attack but, led by the mighty McCaw, they knew how to live and survive in the trenches. Many of their best wins were based on defiant defence, which allowed for bursts of attack. It is a fact.

The fact of the Springboks is that many of their finest wins and best teams could play, knew how to attack space and scored some of the most exhilarating tries.

Players in this country have always had natural attacking skills, yet we only see it come to the fore internationally when certain coaches apply a mindset of picking players capable of igniting attack, as much as they do the imposing physicality of the stereotypical South African forwards.

Harry Viljoen, with all the teams he coached at provincial level — the Lions when they were still called Transvaal, the Sharks when they were Natal, and

Western Province — played attacking rugby that was at times unrivalled globally.

Viljoen’s 1997 Currie Cup title winners, who celebrated their 25th anniversary a month ago, made up the core of Nick Mallett’s 1997/1998 Springboks who would win 16 Tests in succession.

For purposes of accuracy, Carel du Plessis’s Springboks were responsible for the first win in what would be 17 successive Bok wins.

Mallett and Alan Solomons added their touch to what Viljoen had done and the Boks were irrepressible in demolishing teams, among them putting 50 points past France in Paris in 1997 and 68 against Scotland at Murrayfield.

Jake White’s 2007 World Cup winners played the most expansive rugby throughout the World Cup and scored the most tries and points.

In the final, they reverted to the dour arm-wrestle needed to win the tournament. Those same players thrilled in beating the British & Irish Lions and the All Blacks three times in succession in 2009.

Rassie Erasmus’s 2019 World Cup winners were brilliant in playing the perfect final, beating England 32-12, combining counterattack genius with the necessary physical foundation.

Nigel Owens, the most revered international referee, described the All Blacks’ 38-27 win against the Springboks at Ellis Park in 2013 as “the greatest game of rugby I refereed”.

The All Blacks scored five tries; the

Boks four. John Dobson’s 2022 DHL Stormers remind me so much of that 1997 WP team in how they play and that influence, in philosophy, was evident in the Boks’ recent November Tests against Italy and England.

The ability to razzle as much as rumble is there when certain skilled players are picked.

It may not be the style that wins a oneoff World Cup play-off match or final but it is the style that makes you want to watch the Boks every Saturday.

The perception is that the Boks know only one way, but the historical reality contradicts this ignorant view.

South African rugby’s DNA is not defined exclusively by a try-less World

Cup final win, but by those great teams who defended like mongrels and attacked like magicians.