SCENE SETTER: Boks out to break deadlock in clash of titans

The Springboks go into the defining two weeks of their international season carrying the pressure of a global focus that has intensified this time around because their two home Castle Lager Rugby Championship clashes with the All Blacks are a rematch of last year’s World Cup final.

Even in countries not involved in the southern hemisphere competition media buildup to the mini-series between the two traditional powerhouses of world rugby, which begins with Saturday’s match at Emirates Airlines Park and concludes in Cape Town a week later, has started.

And there can’t be any denying which team is the one most under pressure - while New Zealand are fighting to stay alive in the Championship, as hosts and the world’s No 1 ranked team it is Siya Kolisi’s South Africans that carry the pressure of being the favourites.

The Boks have the prize of knowing they will have effectively won the Championship if they win both games to aim at, but there is more to it than that. Although they have won two World Cups since Rassie Erasmus first took the helm in 2018, the breakdown in games between the Boks and the All Blacks is even - 11 games played, five won by each team, and one draw.

The draw was the Championship game in Wellington in the 2019 World Cup year, which followed the historic win by the Boks at the same venue the year before. The Boks should really have won both games against the All Blacks in 2018, but butchered a good position in the Loftus test that concluded the competition that year.

The sides didn’t play each other in the Covid year of 2020, but it was one apiece when the Championship was played on neutral territory, Australia, in 2021, with both games being decided by the finest of margins. A year later the Boks looked to have the measure of the All Blacks when they won 26-10 in Nelspruit, but were surprisingly beaten in Johannesburg a week later.

Last year the Boks were humbled in the opening Championship game at Mt Smart but then recorded a record 35-7 win in a World Cup warmup game at Twickenham before winning the global final.

The All Blacks did win the opening game of the 2019 World Cup in Yokohama, which effectively means it is 3-2 to the Boks at neutral venues, while both teams have won one game at home. Where the Kiwis have the edge though is in away wins - their win in Pretoria in 2018 and in Johannesburg in 2022 makes it 2-1 to them on SA soil since the Bok turnaround from the horrors of a 57-0 defeat in Albany under the coaching of Allister Coetzee started six years ago.

SUCCESSIVE WINS A RARE EVENT FOR BOKS

The All Blacks also have a good record on the highveld, where they haven’t been beaten since a last gasp Patrick Lambie penalty clinched the only win recorded by the Boks against the All Blacks in Heyneke Meyer’s stint as coach. In the last nine games on South African soil, the Boks have only won twice.

So much like there was a historical trend to be redressed when the Boks went to Australia for the first two games of this Championship, so the Boks have a barrier to go through again in these two matches. It is why one win, which might still be enough to clinch the Championship, won’t be their aim - they will be wanting to go one better than 2022 by winning both home games.

That will confirm their status as the No 1 team and give the South Africans a proper edge in meetings with their highly respected opponents in the Erasmus era. Winning both games against the All Blacks will also be a rare achievement for a Bok team post-isolation. Before 1992 South Africa had never lost a series on home soil against the All Blacks, but in the professional era consecutive wins against the Kiwis have been few and far between.

In 1998 there were two games in the Tri-Nations and the Boks won both under the coaching of Nick Mallett and captaincy of Gary Teichmann. Jake White’s team came close in 2004 and 2005 in the sense that the Boks on their home games and both away games were in those two years lost off the last move of the game. So the only other time the Boks have won consecutively against their old foe in the Rugby Championship or Tri-Nations was in 2009, when Peter de Villiers and John Smit presided over a 3-0 whitewash.

DEFINING POINT OF SA’S SEASON

For the All Blacks, coming to South Africa tasked with winning both games if they are to retain their Championship crown is a massive challenge. But it might not be the biggest challenge they face in 2024, for their end of year tour sees them play England, France and Ireland consecutively.

For the Boks, who only play England among the top five ranked nations on the November tour, this is the defining point of the season, not least because they need to break their sequence of being nearly men in the Rugby Championship.

While the Boks have won four World Cups to New Zealand’s three, the All Blacks have dominated the in between years by winning the Tri-Nations and Rugby Championship, mostly with relative ease. Changing that is surely the next part in the Bok evolution and that is the pressure they carry onto the field at Emirates Airlines Park on Saturday.

Fortunately the Boks are no strangers to pressure - there is no greater pressure than that faced in a World Cup playoff game, and this Bok team has won six of those in succession. Indeed, they haven’t been beaten in a World Cup playoff game since New Zealand edged them by two points in the 2015 semifinal. Take away the 2016 and 2017 disasters in Durban and Albany respectively, there tends to be little between these teams, and that adds to the intrigue building up to Saturday.

Weekend Castle Lager Rugby Championship fixtures

South Africa v New Zealand (Johannesburg, Saturday 5pm)

Argentina v Australia (La Plata, Sunday midnight)