Given England’s demolition of the All Blacks a day earlier, the Springboks’ semifinal against Wales at last year’s World Cup could not have been a bigger contrast.
While England was power and panache that the All Blacks could not control on the day, the Springboks went in a day later and arm-wrestled Wales in a game which differed from 24 hours before like chalk and cheese.
It was enough to frustrate many Springbok supporters and underscore the way the Boks would go into the final as massive underdogs, but it was also a massive part of Rassie Erasmus’ plan for the side.
After the emotional win over Japan, the Boks needed to confront the fact that over the previous four years they had never beaten Wales.
Why they chose the “boring route” and why it would work is laid out in detail in Sunday night’s fourth episode of Chasing the Sun, which airs at 6pm on MNet.
While many South Africans automatically believe the Boks would beat Wales, they had not taken into account how strong the Welsh had become as a unit, and how similar they were to the Springboks in terms of suffocating the Boks.
Many Bok teams had fallen – Erasmus coached two losses to the Welsh in tests as well – and the task was not going to be easy.
“They are probably the hardest team that I’ve analysed against,” Jacques Nienaber, who was the team’s defence coach in the World Cup admits.
“We haven’t beaten them in four years,” forwards coach Matt Proudfoot adds. “We don’t know how to beat them.”
It is a stark and honest admission that the Boks would need to make to confront their own demons, and certainly not one that would have gone down well with SA fans before the game.
“Their game plan is to give you the ball, to strangle you. They let you get bored so that you start playing, and then they win,” Erasmus says candidly.
The arm-wrestle presented the biggest stumbling block for the Boks and was won on a knife-edge, but watching England’s win over New Zealand only served to reinforce the fact that the Boks physicality could take them all the way to the title.
The episode also deals with the injury scare to Cheslin Kolbe, the win over Wales and the origin of the megamaul – a 45-metre juggernaut that killed off Japan. And it sets the scene perfectly for the final, which will dominate episode five in a week’s time.
Chasing the Sun will air on Sunday at 6pm on Mnet