South Africa woke up on Sunday morning knowing not only that the dream of being back-to-back Rugby World Cup champions was a reality, but that nobody could take it away from them.
In the cauldron of Stade de France, their heroes scrapped their way to another one-point victory and soon the realisation will set in that this is one of the greatest Springbok teams in rugby history.
With the heavy heads awakening on Sunday morning after the massive celebrations of another big rugby night, the last eight weeks of passion, pain, anxiety and heart-stopping moments would all be worth it for a nation that so needs shards of hope right now.
And the reality will be that this team - a team that represents all South Africans and comes from all walks of life - has been crafted into a magnificently effective rugby tool - which overcame the stiffest of opposition, the sideshows and the criticism, and still had enough in the tank to win.
South Africa, today is the Springboks’ day. Today they stand tall as champions. As winners.
As back-to-back World Cup champions.
And while the miracle of Yokohama was something every South African could feel in their bones - every South African had willed it to be the shining light against a backdrop of so many other problems in the country - this Rugby World Cup victory is arguably bigger and better than the one before.
🇿🇦 🏆🏆 The Springboks are the #CH4MPIONS 🏆🏆 🇿🇦#StrongerTogether | #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/jHcxzDUB63
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 28, 2023
GROUP OF DEATH
For one, they were in the Group of Death - where they had to face the world number one and five team in a lopsided draw that no sane person could ever praise. As my colleague Gavin Rich said the other day in one of his pieces, Kitch Christie used to talk about the high and the low road. Win your biggest pool game and there is an easier path to the finals, lose and it becomes way tougher.
What the Boks faced in this World Cup was akin to taking an underground tunnel.
In fighting their way to the World Cup trophy they faced every single one of the top six teams in the world. And bar one contest, they prevailed in every single one.
To have to face the world’s number one going into the tournament, the world number two in the quarterfinals and arch-enemies in England and New Zealand on the way to the final would make any coach’s blood pressure rise if they saw that draw.
Rassie Eramsus and coach Jacques Nienaber didn’t flinch. They planned, they came up with new and innovative ways of combating the obvious tournament fatigue that was going to come. They overcame the loss of key players like Malcolm Marx and Makazole Mapimpi and they soldiered on.
They overcame a partisan - and sometimes embarrassingly sore losers - home crowd that simply couldn’t accept that their team of magicians, their best side, could lose to another team. This was France’s moment in the sun and because the Boks ruined that with a one-point win and a performance that was one for the classics, they were hated.
They overcame an English side that put on an impeccable tactical performance that seemed to have the Boks on the ropes and found a way to win. Defeated but angered, the English press seized onto Tom Curry’s question to Ben O’Keefe and ran with it as if they were an aggrieved spouse in a messy divorce. Facts and evidence didn’t seem to matter. Guilty as charged and furious when World Rugby couldn’t find any evidence to back up a tenuous claim.
These things would have distracted a weaker-minded team, but not the Boks.
Over the last six years, they have moulded together a team that overcame hardships, fought back so many times from adversity, and always did it with South Africans in their hearts.
#ForSouthAfrica ➡️ #FourSouthAfrica
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 30, 2023
An incredible eight weeks culminating in the Springboks bringing the #RWC2023 trophy back home.
Sit back, relax and enjoy 🍿 pic.twitter.com/hdCpHtZyyK
CARRYING A NATION’S HOPES ON THEIR BACKS
From the inspirational - and now legendary - captain Siya Kolisi, whose humbleness dismantles all who meets him - to every single member of the team, they knew who they were playing for.
Professional sportsmen are notorious for concentrating on their own goals, for being hell-bent on winning. Rugby teams focus on a team element. The sum of the whole is stronger than individuals.
But for this Springbok team, it was different. It was so much more.
They played with the hopes of millions of South Africans on their backs. With the hopes and dreams of a nation that faces so much every day and still finds a way not to fall into the abyss.
For so many people, the Springboks are the best of South Africa. They encompass a fighting spirit that we wish we would see in others in government in trying to better the country.
They encompass a never-say-die attitude, a refusal to simply sit back and take adversity and let it overwhelm you. They know exactly who they are and who they represent.
And while it may seem a bit strange to say it, the Boks draw strength and courage from those they see back home who back them. It would be hard to find a country anywhere in world rugby that draws so much inspiration from their fans, and whose support fuels them onward and upward.
They are a team of champions that show South Africans how to be a team of champions. The lessons they give are free for all to understand. Stronger Together is their motto. It can be applied to so many other parts of this country.
It should be a motto for so many out there of what this country can become. The microcosm of the unique South African-ness is something unique that those outside this country will never be able to understand.
RASNABER EFFECT
And because they can’t understand they misinterpret and attack.
It bears remembering that the Boks, when Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber took over, were at their lowest ebb. At the back end of a first loss to Italy, of two 50-point drubbings at the hands of the All Blacks and bleeding dozens of players to overseas clubs, something needed to be done.
They began rebuilding a side not in terms of talent - South Africa has few equals when it comes to natural rugby talent - but in terms of belief and hope.
Both have often spoken about the fact that they don’t take talent into account when selecting a team - or if they do it is in a lesser capacity.
Entitlement is a taboo word. Those who get into the Springbok ranks need to buy into the team concept heart and soul. What is good for the collective is everything.
We saw this when Manie Libbok was yanked off the field in the semifinal after 31 minutes. While in most countries, this would have been a massive scandal and would dominate headlines for weeks, it was little more than a talking point in the Bok media.
Libbok had an impressive World Cup and was nominated for the Breakthrough Player of the Year award by World Rugby. But the importance of the Bok cause was more important than personal goals.
Libbok hasn’t gone down in anyone’s estimation in the Bok camp. Rather, realising the tide of play on a wet night was going against them, the Boks opted for a different approach and it came through for them.
But it hasn’t just been in crafting a team that believes in itself. It is more than that.
Since winning in Yokohama they have overcome Covid - which robbed Bok rugby of a year of test rugby and an opportunity to blood young talent.
They were then subjected to the most horrible of British and Irish Lions tours - as well as a quarantine bubble Rugby Championship in 2021. Survival, rather than development, was the keyword.
In 2022, they took the flack for fielding 18 changes in the second test against Wales and losing the game. Some 16 months later those changes and that strategy paid off. And if you told any Bok fan to give up that game for a World Cup victory it wouldn’t be a debate today.
They have created depth while winning, backed players the public thought was madness and had their belief rewarded. While a large part of this World Cup squad aren’t likely to make the next World Cup, there are new players with test experience coming through. The next generation is on the rise and Erasmus will stay as Director of Rugby to see that it does.
The end of an era for Jacques Nienaber and the Springboks 🥺
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 29, 2023
He conquered it all ✅#RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/iPcM4k95C7
And while we joke about three weekends that collectively saw the blood pressure and anxiety of a nation rise and fall with kickoff and final whistle, today South Africa can celebrate.
Because this is a team that rose from the ashes of 2018.
A team that chose an iconic leader that world rugby can never now forget.
A team that challenged traditions, brought innovation to the game.
A team that never let the sideshows, the attempts to distract and trip it up get to it.
A team that was always focused on the goal.
A team that overcame more than any other team at any other World Cup
A team of fighters that never give up. A team that wears its heart on its sleeve.
A team that represents you and me as South Africans.
And even if the Webb Ellis Trophy wasn’t heading back to the southern tip of Africa, they would still be a team of champions.
Halala Springboks, Champions of the World.
It's a good day to be South African! 🇿🇦#RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/io1kHPfZkz
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 29, 2023