Matt Williams’ rare Springboks praise as he reveals the player who ‘has a lot to do’ with their ‘attractive’ style of play

Former Scotland, Leinster and Waratahs head coach Matt Williams has dished out rare praise to the Springboks and said their young fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu “has a lot to do” in making it possible for the world champions to “play attractive rugby”.

Williams has been one of the Springboks’ harshest critics, repeatedly slamming their use of forward-heavy replacement benches, while earlier this year also had a public spat on social media with head coach Rassie Erasmus.

The Australian has also criticised the Boks’ conservative approach to the game in the past but hailed the manner in which South Africa attacked after they clinched a convincing 32-17 victory over France in Paris last month.

And now he has doubled down on his praise for the world champions while appearing on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.

“I’ve been praising South Africa for weeks, saying what a great side they are,” said Williams. “But if you happen to say they didn’t play attractive rugby in the last couple of World Cups, but now they are, they don’t listen to that second part!

“They only hear the first part. Martin, I think this South African side… Well, I’ll go back a bit. I’ve said for many years, many, many years, that if South Africa embrace a running game, they will be very hard to stop because of the quality of the athletes that they’re producing.

“But they weren’t using these unbelievably gifted running athletes like they could in the past. You only have to look at the Lions tour there, 2019 (2021 actually) and the way they played. They just based their games around scrummaging and penalties for the last two World Cup cycles.

‘I think the new 10 has a lot to do with this’

“It’s been immensely successful, but it’s just been absolutely horrific to watch, where you’re watching the game and there’s a scrum penalty and everyone in South Africa gets up the stands and they’re cheering. Then everyone just shakes their head and goes, ‘My God, this is ugly, ugly rugby, you know, it really is’. But now, and I think the new 10 (Feinberg-Mngomezulu) has a lot to do with this.

“He is such a complete athlete. He is the real triple threat. He can pass and kick, which obviously South African 10s have been very capable of doing, but it’s his individual running game and his passing game that he’s bringing, like all great 10s, like Richie Mo’unga and you think back to (Dan) Carter, the great 10s, not only are they individual threats, but they bring other players into the game that are around them.

“Carlos Spencer was probably one of the greatest I’ve ever seen do it, where he was such an individual threat, it created space for all the players around him.

“And I think Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is that type of player.”

Williams went on to compare the current Springboks side to the All Blacks one, who were the first team to win back-to-back Rugby World Cups in 2011 and 2015.

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“I think that one of the greatest sides I’ve seen in the last 10 years or 15 years was the World Cup-winning New Zealand side from 2015 when Sonny Bill (Williams) was at his best, Conrad Smith, Dan Carter, just an unbelievable team,” he said.

‘They are just so good’

“And I think this South African team can, they’re getting close right now, a couple of years out from the World Cup, to challenge that (All Blacks) side, they are just so good.

“Like when that New Zealand side was exactly what you said, they were two to three tries a better team than anyone on the planet.

“The teams didn’t play poorly against them; they just played so well. And I remember some of those games where Australia was actually doing okay, like up until the 65th minute against that great side, they’re going toe-to-toe and there’s two or three points in it.

“And then you look at the final score, and it’s 45-21. Something like that. They run in three tries, four tries in the last eight or nine minutes.”

Williams went on to praise several aspects of the 2025 Springboks’ game, which makes it difficult for their opponents to beat them.

“This South African side has got a great scrum,” he said.

“As they showed against Ireland the other day, they can still scrum you into the first three rows of the grandstand. They’ve got a maul that’ll put you in the car park. They have a kicking game that’s superb.

“Their kicking off the tee is superb. And what they’ve added to that is an absolutely fabulous running game where they’re attacking you from set play.

“It’s such a shame the ball didn’t get out of the scrum in the November series as much as it did in the (Rugby) Championship, where we just got such great attacking rugby from them. But they can do anything.

“And obviously their rushing defence is still exceptionally hard to create space against. So, they’re the real deal. They can play every single card in the hand and they’re doing all of them at the moment.

“Their line-out, their maul, their scrum, their go-forward attack and their defence is better than anyone on the planet. So that’s a frightening scenario.”

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