Boks versus All Blacks is a dream and long overdue final

When the Joel Stransky drop-kick won the 1995 Rugby World Cup final for the Springboks, there would have been many at Ellis Park that day who would have thought they were watching the first instalment of what would be a long series of South Africa versus New Zealand deciders.

Yet that was 28 years ago and it hasn’t worked out that way. At almost every one of rugby’s global showpiece events it looks likely there might be a showdown between the historical superpowers in the game (note that qualification - historical), but there’s always been something that gets in the way.

Something like the likely referee for Saturday’s final, England’s Wayne Barnes, missing a forward pass in the buildup to the French try that sunk the All Blacks in the 2007 quarterfinal (yes French fans, sometimes refereeing errors work the other way - it’s swings and roundabouts).

Or of course England knocking out the Kiwis at the last World Cup in Japan, or Australia and France respectively doing for the Boks and All Blacks in the 1999 semifinals.

The deepest into the tournament a South Africa/New Zealand game has happened since 1995 was 2015, when the All Blacks won a tight semifinal at Twickenham by two points.

The Springboks have a date with destiny on Saturday 28 October 🤩

You cannot miss this one! 📺#RWC2023 | #NZLvRSA pic.twitter.com/BKA28aMbxj
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 21, 2023

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE BLEATING IS MISPLACED

If you read some of the comments sections in UK newspapers subsequent to Saturday night’s 16-15 win for the Boks in Paris, you come across a perception that World Cups have been about South Africa and New Zealand.

That’s because both nations have won rugby’s Holy Grail three times, as against two from Australia and just one by England.

But apart from 1995 and 2015, they haven’t won the tournament at the expense of the other - in 1987 New Zealand won the inaugural tournament they hosted but South Africa didn’t participate because of the country’s exclusion from international competition because of apartheid.

In 2011, the other occasion the Kiwis won the World Cup and also on their own territory, a semifinal meeting was prevented by the Bryce Lawrence refereeing freak show that knocked the Boks out in the quarterfinal stage.

There has of course been a lot of bleating from the northern hemisphere, which should be considered predictable given how supporters and media alike that side of the equator were so arrogant in their conviction that this would be a World Cup dominated by European teams, with the semifinals effectively being a kind of Six Nations.

There are all manner of excuses coming out, with there being a quite bizarre one-sidedness in picking out refereeing errors that may have cost France the previous week and England more recently.

If you are going to dispute the refereeing call in the scrum that effectively lost England the match, surely it is only fair to also look at the calls referee Ben O’Keefe appeared to get wrong much earlier in the game.

Like the cynical interference from England captain Owen Farrell in a Bok attack that would surely have got him a yellow card had it been spotted.

NO-ONE WILL DENY REFEREEING IS A PROBLEM AREA IN THE GAME

No-one will deny that the way the modern game is refereed is problematic. The way so many are now seeing the attainment of the numerical advantage that comes from the issuing of cards, like I have just done in the previous paragraph, as part of the modern game, is something to be concerned about.

But it really is swings and roundabouts, and had referee O’Keefe not penalised the England scrum when he did, who is to say that the Boks wouldn’t have found another way to win?

For that is what they are good at, finding a way to win, and while there were just three minutes left when the penalty was kicked by Handre Pollard, there were more than four when it was awarded.

Clutch#ENGvRSA | #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/WkzriCr129
— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) October 21, 2023

The Boks were lucky to get through, but then it also surely needs to be noted that they produced their worst performance of the year in the semifinal, and England haven’t played better since probably their last semifinal against the All Blacks in Yokohama in 2019.

And yet the Boks found a way to win.

Overcoming adversity#RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/Zkm9LsJPau
— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) October 22, 2023

That surely underlines what a good side the current Bok team is. It has in a kind of backhanded compliment form been acknowledged by those members of the UK written media who have described the England performance in the semifinal as among the “the top three or four performances in their history”.

And yet they still lost against a team way short of its best? How awesome must that team be then.

The Boks had a much tougher route to the semifinals, and they wore the impact of that in the game itself.

The toughest test still to come#RWC2023 | #RWCFinal pic.twitter.com/TB8LordVhZ
— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) October 22, 2023

Perhaps our confidence that the coaches would be spot on in their assessment of that impact, which was why they chose an unchanged team, was misplaced.

The Boks definitely looked short of a gallop and flat for most of a game that perfectly suited England’s approach, which is heavily reliant on kicking.

SATURDAY WAS ENGLAND’S FINAL

England played the perfect wet-weather game but given how they have fared over the past few years, it wouldn’t be mischievous to suggest the semifinal was their final.

Had they got through, next week’s final would have been a non-event, with New Zealand winning comfortably.

The All Blacks could still win comfortably, but an All Black/Bok final is a 50/50 affair, as most of their recent clashes have been - with the result of one game often being reversed at the next meeting.

It is in many senses a dream final, a long awaited and long overdue clash between the two nations that have been the most successful in the history of the sport.

The winner will have won the most World Cups, which pretty much sums up the enormity of Saturday’s finale to what, in the playoff stages at least, has been an absorbing and enthralling tournament.

Given better weather conditions than what we saw for the semifinal, it could just produce the quality and level of spectacle and excitement that had so many people describing the games the Boks and All Blacks won in the quarterfinal phase as among the best rugby matches ever played.

The hosts are out of the World Cup and there is also no longer any European interest in the destination of the Webb Ellis trophy.

But that’s sport, if you want to blame anyone blame the draw.

The two winning teams in both the quarterfinals and semifinals did what was needed by scoring more points than their opponents and in doing so they set up a seismic clash that has been long overdue at a Rugby World Cup.