South Africans went to sleep last Sunday night, if their adrenaline allowed any sleep, in an ecstatic mood. It had been a fraught week with a good ending. That mood may have been carried into Monday and Tuesday, then came the realisation - this weekend is going to be a nervously fraught one too.
There would have been many Springbok supporters who at some point in last Sunday’s epic World Cup quarterfinal against France thought to themselves, it is over. There was a time when France just looked too good, and when the Boks started the second half knowing that they wouldn’t have Eben Etzebeth for nine minutes, the worst was feared.
The Boks had started as underdogs, and no one really minds when your team loses to a team that just plays better. It is when they lose to an inferior one, or a refereeing error or plain ineptitude decides the game, that it really hurts.
At that time when the Boks looked like they might lose to the hosts, there was a conversation that could well have been repeated in many places around South Africa at that point: “Oh well, I’d rather lose to this good French team in a quality quarterfinal than lose to England next week.”
ENGLAND THE NATION SA DOESN’T LIKE LOSING TO
This probably cues the nervousness that appears to have been growing this week among fans who for most of the tournament would have wished the Boks could play England at the quarterfinal stage. If there is one nation South Africans don’t like losing to, in any sport, it is England. And on Saturday at Stade de France, England, who have really been operating in the second division of the RWC up to now, get the opportunity to avenge what happened to them in Yokohama on 2 November 2019.
Make no mistake, Joel Stransky, who kicked the drop goal that won South Africa her first World Cup title back in 1995, is right. If you compare the two teams, there really isn’t a comparison. When England last played the French team, which South Africa got the better of last Sunday, they shipped 50 points. And that was a game England played at home!
There is nothing in England’s recent record that suggests they can beat the Boks - as Stransky says, they are not particularly good or fearsome at anything. Their pack is passable but not formidable like it was in 2019 and when Bok coach Jacques Nienaber described their backs as world-class earlier this week, you wanted to say “Jacques, try another one”.
At least they haven’t shown it at this World Cup, and they also never showed it in the warmups, where they were spectacularly disastrous. Yes, they are the only remaining unbeaten team, but who have they beaten? The Argentina side they beat in their opening game was ranked seventh at the time. That’s as high as it got for them.
And yet we all know how weird sport is, and we have all heard often enough that a one-off playoff game can be a leveller and that the two teams both start at zero. A playoff can be a different animal mentally. Also, there is the modern rugby blight of potential red cards. That can change everything.
When it comes to bizarre results, it might not have helped those South Africans who follow both sports that the Netherlands shocked an in-form Proteas cricket team in the other World Cup being played right now. ODI cricket is more of a lottery than rugby, particularly when the game is rain-shortened, as Tuesday's was. But still, would England beating SA at rugby be more bizarre than the Dutch beating SA at cricket? Probably not.
PROVEN MENTAL STRENGTH
Here’s why the South African nerves might be misplaced though - the one thing that the national rugby team has proven repeatedly, and which the cricketers have yet to prove (hopefully they will later in the competition), is their mental strength.
Coming back from being one game down to win the spiteful and stressful 2021 British and Irish Lions series, which was made so much worse by not being played in front of fans because of Covid, with a late penalty kick took massive mental strength. The big match temperament (BMT) was writ large in that final game when, in a microcosm of the whole series, they recovered from a poor first half to win.
The Boks do have massive BMT. They showed it on Sunday, when they suffered the rare experience of being dominated in the collisions and at one point gave away perhaps more ground to France in a driving maul than they’ve conceded in this entire four-year World Cup cycle. It looked bleak for the Boks then, but what did they do? They struck back immediately with a try of their own.
And when their enforcer Etzebeth was off and they were down to 14 men, they somehow survived those 10 minutes, only conceding the three points that were kicked on the halftime whistle because of the lock’s misdemeanour. After that, they came back to score, through the self-same Etzebeth, plus a monstrous penalty kick from Handre Pollard, and win. It was against France, rated by many as tournament favourites, on their home field in front of a partisan and boisterous crowd.
There have been some astounding semifinal results over the years, and none was more so than when France, nowhere near as good as they are now, shocked a highly-rated All Black team in London in 1999. I was at Twickenham that day and can remember how the fidgetiness of the players on the field was matched by some of the Kiwi fans. Within a few minutes, a game that New Zealand was comfortably winning was turned on its head.
UNLIKELY COACHES WILL HAVE MISREAD THE ENERGY
But there may well have been some mental softness from that All Black team that contributed to their demise. There is nothing soft about the Boks mentally and while the fear that last Sunday might have taken too much out of them both physically and emotionally, it would be highly out of character for Rassie Erasmus and Nienaber not to be aware of that. The retention of the same team, when there is plenty of depth to freshen up should it be necessary, suggests Siya Kolisi’s men are on track despite having to dig so deep just a few days ago.
The comparisons of the reversal of roles between Saturday’s protagonists from 2019 are understandable: Back then, most English people and neutrals thought England would win after beating the Kiwis in their semi. But it is also not really comparing apples with apples - the Boks, who start as favourites on Saturday, are a much better team than the 2019 England team were, and this England team is not nearly as good as that Bok team was.
That’s another reason South Africans should be less nervous. The Boks have grown immensely since 2019, with the stumbling block of missing a whole year to Covid in 2020 now being overcome. Let’s not forget the Lions series in 2021 was effectively two games after the 2019 final. The Boks having grown to the point where they now have several ways to win.
It is no longer just about Bok forward power and suffocating defence, though if you cast your mind back to the 2019 final and the tries scored there, you realise maybe it never was, but an all-around game that severely tests every department of the opposition team. Cue France on that: They were initially exposed at the back last week through the Bok kicks; later, the Bok forwards, at the breakdowns and in the scrums, exposed them.
If the Boks aren’t complacent and are treating this as another final rather than a stepping stone to the following week, which was maybe what New Zealand got wrong in 2019, and they play anywhere near their potential, they will win. For England to win, it will require them to be better than they have been for many years, and the Boks to produce their worst performance of this World Cup. This Bok team is surely too experienced and mentally strong to trip up at this point.
TEAMS:
South Africa: Damian Willemse, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Cheslin Kolbe, Manie Libbok, Cobus Reinach, Duane Vermeulen, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (captain), Franco Mostert, Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Bongi Mbonambi, Steven Kitshoff. Replacements: Deon Fourie, Ox Nche, Vincent Koch, RG Snyman, Kwagga Smith, Faf de Klerk, Handre Pollard, Willie le Roux.
England: Freddie Steward, Jonny May, Joe Marchant, Manu Tuilagi, Elliot Daly, Owen Farrell (captain), Alex Mitchell, Ben Earl, Tom Curry, Courtney Lawes, George Martin, Maro Itoje, Dan Cole, Jamie George, Joe Marler. Replacements: Theo Dan, Ellis Genge, Kyle Sinckler, Ollie Chessum, Billy Vunipola, Danny Care, George Ford, Ollie Lawrence.
Referee: Ben O’Keefe (New Zealand)
Kick-off: Saturday 21.00
Prediction: South Africa by 12