Auckland is the first final for red hot flexiboks

They are just one week into the World Cup international season but already the Springboks face what their coaches are sure to consider their first dry run for the global decider they will be hoping to play in Paris later this year.

It was the same in 2019 of course, when the Boks went to Wellington for the second game. But that clash with the All Blacks was less easily identifiable as a Castle Lager Rugby Championship decider. This time it is, for Argentina will be coming to Johannesburg for the final game, and what emerged crystal clear from the first weekend of competition is that there are two separate tiers in the Championship.

Both South Africa and New Zealand won comfortably in their first games, with the victories comprehensive enough to underline the wide chasm between them and the other two teams, Australia and the Pumas. The team that wins in Auckland in what has now become a particularly eagerly awaited first showdown between the two traditional world rugby powerhouses on New Zealand soil in four years will win the Championship. It’s as simple as that.

That last game at the Westpac Stadium back in 2019 ended in an exciting draw, and no-one would be surprised if it was that close again. Indeed, the only way the final round of fixtures on 29 July, when the Australians host the All Blacks at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Argentina head to Emirates Airlines Park, is if there is another draw.

FIRST TIME KIWIS WILL FACE NEW LOOK SA

The Boks, while probably acknowledging that there’s been plenty of evolution in the All Black game since the big win the South Africans scored against them in Nelspruit last August, should feel quietly confident about their chances. And there is also plenty of extra intrigue to this game. For this will be the first time the two teams have met since the Boks clicked the switch to the more innovative and varied template that they started to take on board during the 2022 end of year tour.

Just as the Kiwis, chastened by the criticism that rained down on them after their home series defeat to Ireland, began to click their switch to a more direct style, some would say towards a style better suited to international rugby, here in South Africa 11 months ago, so the Boks started their reinvention in Ireland, France, Italy and England last November.

It might be stretching it a bit, but you can still say it - the All Blacks since their bounce back win in Johannesburg on 13 August last year have worked at becoming more like the Boks. The Boks in turn have started to become more like the All Blacks in terms of what they are prepared to venture on the field, and where on the field they are prepared to do it from.

One of the delights for South African fans in the Loftus mauling of the Wallabies would surely have been the big mauling drive that appeared to shock the visitors early in the second half. That used to be considered the South African staple. Now, thanks to a willingness to run back kick receipt and greater clarity on how to mix up their game and attack space, the maul and contestable kicking is far from the only thing opposition teams have to worry about when they face the Boks.

LOFTUS CONFIRMED THE CHANGE OF APPROACH

The message writ large at Loftus was that the change we saw to the Boks after their first tour defeat to Ireland last November wasn’t just dictated by the circumstances. Circumstances such as playing a French team that plays similarly to the Boks, in other words pinned a lot on a strong kicking game, and losing a man early in that game (Pieter-Steph du Toit) to a red card.

Ironically, Wallaby coach Eddie Jones, when asked on a recent visit to England to coach the Barbarians about the evolution of rugby in the buildup to the World Cup in France, pinpointed South Africa’s running back of kick receipt on the last end of year tour as a possible trend setting change that the other nations should take note of.

Perhaps Eddie forgot to communicate that to his Wallabies, for they seemed a bit stunned by the South African ability to mix up their game. If there was a team flattered by the 31 point margin between the teams it was the Wallabies.

It would be churlish to criticise a team that played so well and was so dominant in so many phases, but if you could criticise the Boks it would be for not being as ruthless and as clinical as they could have been in their many visits to the Wallaby 22 metre area. Had they delivered on that, we might have seen the Boks hit 70 and eclipse the record win scored against the Aussies at Loftus in 1997 (61-22).

Not that there wasn’t already enough ignominy for a Wallabies team that was so determined to answer their new coach’s call for them to make history by breaking what has now become an eight game losing sequence at Loftus dating back to their first game there in 1963 and yet was outplayed in all departments.

The Wallabies scored the first try of the game and the last, but as Supersport commentator Matthew Pearce put it, there was precious little in between. Instead there was just a pile of evidence to suggest that Jones has his work cut out to make Australia competitive at this World Cup, let alone challenge for a win.

FLEXIBILITY KEY WORD FOR BOKS

It is just the start of the World Cup year and there is much that can happen between now and November, but the disturbing thing for the Wallabies, and indeed future Bok opponents, is that the victors at Loftus are just starting out on a journey of their own and there is plenty of potential for growth.

And the key word about the Springboks of 2023 that didn’t apply before is flexibility. Flexibility not just in game plan, but also in thought. Let’s look at the game first. When the Boks first returned to international rugby after years in isolation back in 1992 it was clear they were lagging when it game to the evolution of the game.

They relied on a conservative game plan that was outdated, and it prompted the then rugby writer at The Cape Argus, Deon Viljoen, to coin them the RetroBoks. Well 31 years on from then, the penny has finally dropped and they’ve finally become the FlexiBoks.

Seeing we are quoting rugby writers, let’s use the long serving English rugby writer Stephen Jones, not always considered a big fan of South Africa, to sum up what has changed. This is what Jones wrote in The Sunday Times of London after watching the Boks: “Are the Boks too long in the tooth to retain the World Cup? On this evidence they must be new favourites for France 2023. They were monstrous up front in all the usual departments, but were also rapid and sharp.”

FLEXIBILITY IN THE MIND IS IMPORTANT TOO

That’s exactly it. South African rugby doesn’t need to eschew traditional strengths in the quest to evolve and modernise. It just needs to build on those strengths by bringing in other angles, such as the X-factor, pace and skill of the players at the back. Players such as Kurt Lee Arendse, who scored a hattrick of tries and should have scored another. And if Cheslin Kolbe is fit, Arendse may not even play in the big games at the World Cup.

But that cues another thing: Flexibility of game plan is one thing, flexibility of mind and thinking is another. And this was another area where the Boks showed signs of growth at the weekend. It came from assistant coach Mzwandile Stick, who stood in for director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and coach Jacques Nienaber at the post-match press conference because they were rushing for their flight to New Zealand.

Stick said that the performances of some of the players who featured at Loftus had changed the thinking about what team will be put out against the All Blacks on Saturday. Clarity of thought is a strength, but there have been times in the Erasmus era when there has been some intransigence when it comes to selection.

A willingness to look at alternative options and move away from a rigid, set in stone selection based on number of caps and past achievement might prove another boost to a World Cup quest that is growing incrementally stronger every time the Boks play.

KIWIS WILL BE A DIFFERENT ANIMAL

Of course, this week’s game will see the Boks pitted against a very different animal. Both the Boks and the All Blacks won against teams that were severely flawed this weekend, so Auckland is going to be a very different experience for both.

What we do know for certain though is that the Boks won’t be going back into their shell and presenting New Zealand with the more predictable defensive, mauling and contestable kicking approach they are used to from these opponents. Why? Because they don’t have a flyhalf currently in the squad that really plays that way.

Whether it is Manie Libbok or Damian Willemse who wears the No 10, the All Blacks can expect to be fronting game drivers that play it quite differently to what they’ve encountered in South African pivots in the past, perhaps not since a very young Handre Pollard, who was brilliant at the gainline back before he was coached into being more conservative, terrorised them in the first half of the 2014 Johannesburg game.

The old strengths haven’t been eschewed, but there is a lot that is new under the Springbok sun. And that makes this weekend’s game particularly appetising. And Stephen Jones is right - after this week we should at least see one other team at the very least join France and Ireland, but perhaps even eclipse them, as the favourite for France 2023.