Comment: Springboks show why they are the game’s ‘dominant force’ with second successive Rugby Championship triumph
The Springboks celebrate their Rugby Championship title while head coach Rassie Erasmus looks on (inset).
Back to back World Cups followed by successive Rugby Championship titles, South Africa underscored their status as the sport’s dominant force in front of 70,000 mainly Green and Gold fans at Twickenham.
Two tries by Cobus Reinach and a brace for Malcolm Marx helped the Springboks overcome a sluggish start and bag the win necessary to pip New Zealand to the crown, albeit only on points difference.
For their performance in Wellington, where they handed the All Blacks their biggest ever beating, they deserved to come out on top. For the 37-point virtuoso display by Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu in Durban a week ago, anything less than the prize would have been a travesty.
Yet sport doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t always reward the worthy. On a dreich afternoon in south west London the Boks had to ride their luck to get them to the promised land.
Argentina will argue forever and a day that Canan Moodie should have been shown a second yellow card on 30 minutes for illegally disrupting a Pumas attack with one hand grasping at the ball.
They led 13-3 at the time, having made 18 tackles to the Springboks’ 58. For all the world it seemed they would be the next team to score. Having Moodie in the bin would have made that an even greater certainty.
‘South Africa were empowered by the reprieve’
The centre got away with it, conceding not so much as a penalty, South Africa were empowered by the reprieve and, 15 minutes later, had snatched a lead they would not relinquish.
In fact, between minutes 27 and 66 Los Pumas were held pointless. It did not help that Mayco Vivas, their prop, was sent to the cooler for a shoulder to the head of Eben Etzebeth, from which Marx scored the first of his two tries.
Maybe they were weighed down by a burning sense of injustice. More likely, one suspects, it was the force coming at them from the Boks scrum which seriously rose to the challenge in the third quarter.
When Marx crossed for his second on the hour, pouncing on a loose ball from his own lineout throw and bundling over the whitewash, South Africa led 29-13.
Even then the cause was not won. Incredibly, had the excellent Santi Carreras not struck an upright with a 78th minute penalty they might very well have stolen the spoils and handed New Zealand a 10th title.
Two minutes later Carreras’ right boot sent the sweetest of diagonals into the hands of Rodrigo Isgro and, across the road from his home ground, the Harlequins man scored to make it a two-point ball game.
None of which came as a surprise to Rassie Erasmus, who knew exactly how tough this game would be at the end of a week in which every Tom, Dick and Harry had told the Boks how outstanding a team they are.
Experience has taught him what that does not only to the players having smoke blown up them, but to opponents watching it happen.
Wary of the threat posed by Argentina
Erasmus knew also that these particular opponents had won both return games in this championship against New Zealand and Australia after losing the first.
Rather than hide from these matters, pretend they were unworthy of consideration, the Springboks coach confronted them head on, publicly saying in the build-up he considered dropping Feinberg-Mngomezulu in favour of Handre Pollard.
That he did not was a nod to the necessary development of this South Africa team. In essence he rolled the dice, accepted there could be some short term gain as a price to pay for longer term gain.
By the standards of King’s Park, Feinberg-Mngomezulu did struggle. A week after his sublime try hat-trick he was largely kept under lock and key and was often frustrated by the extra attention.
But he and South Africa escaped without a bloody nose. Argentina were, as ever, heroic in their defensive resistance and beautiful to watch ball in hand.
Bautista Delguy scored two lovely tries and the fact a team of their quality finished propping up the table speaks to the strength of this year’s championship rather than any major fault line in Felipe Contepomi’s outfit.
They will continue to build towards the 2027 World Cup. The bigger problem for the rest of the sport is that so will South Africa. Six years after conquering the world in Yokohama they show absolutely no sign they are about to abdicate their throne.