ANALYSIS: The evolution of the Green and Gold antelope
CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS: The Springboks are renowned for being ‘brutal beasts’ on the rugby field.
However, much like the Antidorcas marsupialis in nature, Siya Kolisi and his class of 2025 have ‘evolved’ into a herd of evasive, fleet-footed creatures that run their rivals ragged.
The evolution of coach Rassie Erasmus’ band can best be found in the statistics after five rounds of the Rugby Championship.
With the sublime skills of Damian Willemse, Cheslin Kolbe, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Manie Libbok, the Boks are entertaining as well as winning.
They still have enough ‘muscle’ in Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Eben Etzebeth, Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Wilco Louw, to go with skillful forwards like RG Snyman and Kwagga Smith.
While able to engage the opposition in the physical exchanges, the Springboks now top all the attacking statistics, displaying their stotting (also called pronking) ability in glorious fashion.
South Africa has scored 23 tries (just under five per match), with Australia (20), New Zealand (17) and Argentina (11) trailing them.
The Boks also top other attacking aspects, such as clean breaks, 42 to second-placed Australia’s 34, metres gained (2,381 to the 2,123 of the Wallabies) and defenders beaten (139 to the second-placed All Blacks’ 132).
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That’s a far cry from a team that was labelled as a dour, predictable outfit relying on defence and territorial dominance to win back-to-back World Cups.
To further illuminate the Springbok evolution is the fact that in the set pieces, they trail their rivals.
South Africa’s once famed defence has dropped below the 80 percent tackle completion success rate, with 78.8 percent – behind Australia (86.6 percent), Argentina( 85.7) and New Zealand (84).
The Boks are also fourth in the line-outs (82.1 percent), scrums (90 percent) and rucks (96 percent).
However, the most important stat is that South Africa is No.1 in the world and tops the Rugby Championship standings.
@rugby365com
