Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus said it during the week - the forthcoming Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series against the All Blacks is going to be a war of attrition that will be tantamount to being a survival course that will require both teams to go deep into their squads.
It is for that reason, because the South Africans have a deeper squad when it comes to tried and tested international players, that the Boks must start as outright favourites to win the series. There may not be that much between the two best 23 match day squads, but it may be a different story when you start going deeper than that.
And in a series that will see the two best teams in the world pitted against each other over four successive weekends, they are bound to go deeper than that. You can bet your house that Erasmus is planning for that. Maybe the All Black coach Dave Rennie too.
There are some good players training back in South Africa who are not in Argentina with the squad that will face the Los Pumas in Buenos Aires on Saturday night, but you’d expect Erasmus to place a high premium on starting off the All Black series in Johannesburg on 22 August with his squad at full muster.
And given the importance of the opening test at Ellis Park in terms of setting the tone for the series, he would probably want his most experienced players fronting the All Blacks that day. Although that isn’t a given if you think back two years to the last time the Boks hosted New Zealand in Johannesburg - he went with some inexperienced players in that game, most notably Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who at that stage could count his number of caps on one hand, as his flyhalf.
The Boks got through that game as winners after a slow start and Feinberg-Mngomezulu was a star performer, but Erasmus didn’t have three more games against the All Blacks to look forward to after that. It’s a whole different scenario now, and the ideal would be for the Boks to start their most experienced team at Ellis Park, which means that it is crucial that the old hands who are playing their first test matches of the international season get through the Buenos Aires game so they can be available for the start of the series.
That of course means Eben Etzebeth, who has played just once since the incident in the last test of 2025 that saw him suspended, Lood de Jager and skipper Siya Kolisi. And while he isn’t an old hand at all, and is just 24, that also means Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who since his first experience against the All Blacks two years ago has gone on to be recognised as the best flyhalf in the world.
Playing so many players together who are playing their first game in a long time prompted Erasmus to say at the team announcement press conference that he expects the Buenos Aires game to be a grind. He said he’d just be happy to win the game, and if you think back to some of the close battles the Boks have had with the Pumas in the past, you’d agree with him.
Indeed, the Boks lost the last time they were in Argentina - remember Manie Libbok’s miss with what would have been the winning kick in 2024 - and they were run to within two points by the South American team in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship decider in London last October.
But those were full strength Argentina teams. The Boks aren’t at full strength for the Buenos Aires encounter, but everyone knows that full strength or under-strength are relative concepts when it comes to the world champions. For those who question that, think back to the 43-10 win over the All Blacks in Wellington - Etzebeth wasn’t there, Damian de Allende wasn’t there, Jesse Kriel wasn’t there, Feinberg-Mngomezulu was only there in the first quarter. And when the Boks won the World Cup in 2023, Malcolm Marx wasn’t there. All of which points to the systems, and the way the players fit into the systems, being the keys to the Bok success.
Argentina being under-strength, which they are on Saturday as they are fielding four new caps and are missing most of their experienced foreign legion, is a different story. They go into the game as an unknown quantity, but it is hard to imagine there is enough depth in Argentina to inspire a strong under-strength challenge to the Boks.
So while the Boks have taken the right attitude to South America in the sense they have stuck to the hymn sheet of not looking ahead to the All Blacks, there shouldn’t really be any question about who will win this game. What matters is that the players under scrutiny, and that doesn’t just include the old guard for the likes of Canan Moodie and Ethan Hooker have also not played much, come through with flying colours.
If they do, Erasmus and his fellow coaches will be able to breathe easier and feel some confidence as they fly back across the Atlantic to the big event of this rugby year - which kicks off on Friday night in Cape Town.
TEAMS
Argentina: Geronimo Prisciantelli, Rodrigo Isgró, Lucio Cinti, Faustino Sánchez Valarolo, Ignacio Mendy, Santiago Carreras, Simón Benítez Cruz, Joaquín Moro, Benjamín Grondona, Pablo Matera (captain), Tomás Lavanini, Guido Petti, Francisco Moreno, Ignacio Ruiz, Boris Wenger. Replacements: Leonel Oviedo, Mayco Vivas, Tomás Rapetti, Efraín Elías, Juan Penoucos, Juan Martín Scelzo, Agustín Moyano, Matías Moroni.
South Africa: Aphelele Fassi, Edwill van der Merwe, Canan Moodie, Andre Esterhuizen, Ethan Hooker, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Cobus Reinach, Cameron Hanekom, Elrigh Louw, Siya Kolisi (captain), Lood de Jager, Eben Etzebeth, Thomas du Toit, Johan Grobbelaar, Boan Venter. Replacements: Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Gerhard Steenekamp, Zachary Porthen, Ben-Jason Dixon, Cobus Wiese, Marco van Staden, Morne van den Bergh, Handre Pollard.
Referee: Pierre Brousset (France)
Kick-off: 21.00 SA time
Prediction: Springboks to win by 20 or more