The churlish among us might have felt it was another game where the Springboks failed to completely capitalise on their dominance, but coach Rassie Erasmus was satisfied with the margin of victory against Wales and his team’s supporters should be too.
The Boks ended the year with a remarkably similar result to the one they started it with - 41-13 against Wales at Twickenham in June, and 45-12 against the same opponents in Cardiff.
But if anyone suggested that’s an indication both sides are now where they were then, it would be because they are overlooking certain realities and not comparing apples to apples.
The June result came at the start of the international year and was outside the international window. The side that lost to the Boks this past weekend was injury ravaged but otherwise the best team their coach Warren Gatland could select.
In June the game was outside the international window so Gatland had to go much deeper in his selection.
Talking of Gatland, this most recent game was also one where the Welsh were a lot more desperate - after the big defeat to the Wallabies the previous week, the players were desperate to make some kind of statement and the game against the world champions was an opportunity to make a statement.
EVERY OPPONENT HAS RAISED ITS GAME
It has mostly been thus in this first post-World Cup year for the double world champions. They have a target on their back, and everyone raises their game when playing them.
Even England and Scotland, the two previous victims for the Boks on their unbeaten end of year tour, raised their games. And they both lost. The nearest any team came to beating the Boks was England. The gap was nine points.
There was a reason for the rust that the team captained by Pieter-Steph du Toit in June showed. It was the first game of the new season. Erasmus was fielding experimental combinations. You’d hesitate to suggest the errors evident in the Cardiff game were down to rust, more to the selection changes that have been a constant throughout the international season.
But whereas the June performance had some patchy elements to it, the one in Cardiff didn’t. The Boks were completely in charge and completely dominant throughout, and that the Boks didn’t kick on from their four first-half tries to make it really ugly for Wales didn’t undermine the overall quality of their performance.
It enabled the side to end with 11 wins in 13 starts, with the two losses both being by a solitary point. Along the way they averaged more than four tries a game, and they did all that while the coaches were experimenting with selections in a quest to improve the team’s depth.
Had Jean Kleyn not had to withdraw with an injury niggle on the eve of the game, Cameron Hanekom would have been the 52nd different player used by Erasmus this year.
WINNING WHILE EXPERIMENTING
No other nation has gone that deep in their selections, and yet no other nation has come close to achieving what the Boks have this year in terms of results either. That is a measure of the success that Erasmus is achieving in his mission to ensure that all bases are covered when 2027 and the next World Cup year arrives.
“It was nice for the team to have achieved all of that,” said Erasmus after completing a season where his team won the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, finished top of the World Rugby rankings and also completed an end of year tour unbeaten for the first time since 2013.
“I was worried at first about how the players will take the swapping, but we were honest with them at the beginning of the season, and they all bought into the plan, which is admirable. We also got a new attack and defence coach this year (Tony Brown and Jerry Flannery) and the way they slotted in and assisted the team was fantastic.
“We are satisfied with the scoreboard (against Wales) and the year in general. And one must applaud the players for their effort, especially since we made so many changes. It’s rewarding that we were able to finish the year using (more than) 50 players. We lost rhythm at times, but the way Siya (Kolisi) and the other leaders kept the group together was special.”
SIYA PRAISES RASSIE
Skipper Kolisi gave the credit to Erasmus for the team’s success this season and over the last few years in which they won back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles and a British & Irish Lions series in addition to the Rugby Championship.
Kolisi, who played in his 92nd test in Cardiff, said the way Erasmus took the pressure off him as the captain was instrumental in the team’s success, while he was full of praise for the Bok coach after the victory.
“We are so lucky with the kind of leadership we have in this group, and the way coach Rassie set up the group and took the pressure away from me with everyone having their own pressure points really helps,” said Kolisi.
WALES PLAYED THEIR HEARTS OUT
Meanwhile Erasmus rightly lauded the beleaguered Welsh for the effort they put in. Against the Aussies the previous week Wales had looked a bit off, but the team the Boks beat two days ago played their hearts out.
“They’re a gutsy nation and having been part of the first team that lost against them in 1999, I can attest to that,” said Erasmus.
“They are a tough bunch and they could have lied down when had built up a good lead, especially given how hard we were going at them, but they fought and hung in there and scored again at the end.”
Indeed, if there was a concern for the Boks it would have been that they let the Welsh score at the end of both halves. It could easily have been a whitewash. The Boks could easily have added another five tries to the seven they did score.
But they will be the first to acknowledge the room for improvement, which should be chilling news to future opponents. And it is true that the chopping and changing in selection probably mitigated against them achieving the much bigger margins of victory that the Boks could have managed in many games.
While Ireland did hit the Boks with ferocious intensity, particularly in the first half, when they squared that series in Durban in July, the away loss to Argentina in the Championship can definitely be ascribed to the lack of continuity in selection.
The margin between the Boks and the next best team on the rankings might have ended up being a lot wider had Erasmus stuck with the core of the same team throughout the season.
SITTING PRETTY WITH DEPTH
That he didn’t though means he is sitting pretty at the end of this first year of the World Cup cycle when it comes to his depth in most positions. Take flyhalf as the obvious example - Jordan Hendrikse was nervous in his debut against Wales in London in June, but he delivered with telling effect in Cardiff. With Damian Willemse also capable of playing there, the Boks now have a well of five flyhalves to work with.
In almost every position Erasmus is going to have a headache cutting good players from the group when, as he promises to do, next year he whittles his squad down to the 35 he will work with into a 2026 season that will include a four-match series against New Zealand followed by the World Cup a year later.
Erasmus’ mention of attack coach Brown is also a reminder that the Boks have been a work in progress when it comes to the direction they are evolving their game, and that too has contributed to the appearance that they haven’t always hit their straps and delivered the best performance they are capable of.
RIVALS ARE GROWING TOO
But it is good for the Boks that they have improvements to make, because some of their fiercest rivals are on an upward trend too - particularly New Zealand. The narrative before this year was that the Kiwis are missing the South African contact in Super Rugby, and they probably are, but the penny does appear to have dropped regarding what they require to win international matches.
The All Blacks will always have pace to burn and plenty of skill out wide, but it is their forwards that have been making the big statements in the second half of the international season.
The way their scrum dominated the French, who are arguably the other team now in a big three featuring New Zealand and South Africa as the others, should have been a warning to the Boks that further growth and an upward trend on the performance graph is going to remain necessary going forward.
SPRINGBOK END OF YEAR TOUR RESULTS
Scotland 15 South Africa 32
England 20 South Africa 29
Wales 12 South Africa 45