'Best' Bok attack to improve in 2025?

OPINION: Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks will break the attacking records set in 2024 if they hit their straps in the Italy series and the matches that follow.

There was a moment at the Cape Town Stadium this past Saturday that summed up the attitude of this Bok team and coaching staff.

After 81 minutes, the scoreboard read 47-7.

The Boks won the ball back from the Barbarians, but instead of booting it into touch, they pushed for an eighth try as well as a score over 50 points.

At that moment, I turned in my seat in the flooded press area to look at the big screen, which showed Erasmus and his lieutenants in the coaching box.

The game was over as a contest, but Erasmus and company were focused on the final play, as if it the result was still in the balance.

It got me thinking that the Boks may have set themselves a pre-match target of 50 points.

That was always going to be a tough ask in stormy conditions, but in the end, a mix-and-match Bok side beat the Barbarians 54-7.

It also got me thinking about the team’s goals for the two-match series against Italy and the one-off against Georgia.

While Erasmus has spoken about his desire to blood new players and use between 45 and 50 players over the course of the four mid-year matches, he hasn’t said what would constitute a success in terms of results and winning margins.

And he probably won’t, as it’s not the kind of thing you state outright, even though the evidence suggests that the Boks should beat Italy and Georgia by plenty over the next three weeks.

This prediction is based on the form of the tourists and that of the Boks.

Italy have played seven matches in South Africa over the past 26 years, conceding 40 or more points on five occasions. Throughout that period, the Italian attack has failed to score more than 14 points.

While the Azzurri have come a long way over the past decade, they don’t have the depth to challenge the best teams consistently.

This much was evident in the recent Six Nations, where they beat Wales and pushed Scotland and Ireland close, but lost heavily to England and France.

What’s more, Italy are currently touring South Africa without 10 first-choice players, as coach Gonzalo Quesada looks to address the issue of depth ahead of the 2027 World Cup.

This is not to suggest that the Boks have any reason to be arrogant or complacent this July.

Erasmus has created an environment in which veterans and rookies alike are in a mad scrap for squad places – to feature in the upcoming Rugby Championship and the next global tournament in Australia.

Squad development aside, the Boks are looking to bolster their game plan, which has never been as well-rounded or effective than it is right now.

The stats that matter from the 2024 season are 11 from 13, or 85 percent – the Boks’ winning ratio.

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To overstate the obvious, Erasmus and his coaching team are getting something right.

It’s worth unpacking that further, because the Boks have won big matches, series and tournaments before under Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber without necessarily playing the most balanced brand of rugby.

Comparisons between eras – and in some cases, seasons – are generally unfair, given how laws and trends change.

Right now, rugby is an attack bubble, and with that in mind, one can understand why Erasmus recruited Tony Brown at the start of 2024. The Boks can’t play the way they did at the 2019 World Cup or in the 2021 Lions series and expect to win consistently in the present day.

The numbers show just how far this Bok group has come since Erasmus and Nienaber first took the reins in 2018.

While the two World Cups and Lions series victory stand out, the Boks were at their most potent and their most consistent in 2024.

Taking every season into account (2018-2024), this group set new records for total points (450) and tries scored (57) – averaging 35 points and 4.4 tries per match.

Consider the worst attacking returns from this group – an average of 24 points per game in 2018 and two tries per match in 2021 – and you get an idea of how far this team has come.

The move towards a more attacking approach – and a more balanced overall strategy – began in mid-to-late 2022, with limited success.

By 2023, we started to see the Boks averaging 31 points and 4.2 tries per game. The 85 percent win record – not to mention the World Cup triumph – marked that season as one to remember.

By all accounts, Brown has taken the Bok attack forward in the subsequent 18 months.

Speak to the players, and they will tell you how he has challenged their decision-making and forced them to think differently about attacking space. That applies to forwards as well as backs.

More recently, the Bok coaching supergroup has recruited – or re-recruited – another key figure in Felix Jones.

It will be fascinating to see how Jones’ eye for detail influences the side across the respective departments in 2025, and in the lead-up to 2027.

South African supporters won’t care about attacking numbers or points-differentials if results don’t go the Boks’ way in 2025.

Indeed, this season will be defined by the results in New Zealand, and the end-of-year Tests against France and Ireland.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that opposition coaches will have noted the Boks’ improvement in recent years, and the threats they now pose across the field. Barbarians coach Robbie Deans said as much in the wake of the recent fixture in Cape Town.

Balance is key, and for the first time, the Boks seem to be striking a balance between attack, kicking and defence.

They kicked more than 30 times in the big win against the BaaBaas, mixing contestables with attacking probes and grubbers – which occasionally led to further attacking and scoring opportunities.

In terms of defence, assistant coach Jerry Flannery deserves credit for how he has taken the team forward since the departure of Nienaber.

The Boks were at their most miserly when Nienaber ran the defence – and the 2019 season stands out, with an average of 12 points and 0.9 tries conceded per match.

The 2024 defence stats – an average of 17 points and 1.7 tries conceded – may seem worse, but again, you have to account for how the laws and shape of the game have changed.

And for context, the Boks were the best defensive team across the 2024 Rugby Championship – conceding 10 tries in six matches.

There are other metrics that show how the Boks have improved, such as their conversion rate in the opposition 22.

We saw the Boks going to their maul last week, but if the past season or two has taught us anything, it’s that the South Africans have more than one weapon in their arsenal.

It will be interesting to see whether the Boks continue on their current attacking trajectory – and whether they finish the 2025 season with more points and tries than they did in what was a ground-breaking 2024 campaign.

Results matter, and nobody will be looking past the Freedom Cup series or the marquee fixtures in Europe – and no South African fan will care if the Boks win all four matches 3-0, as long as they win.

Overall, the Boks should look to be more ambitious, and the current block of matches presents an opportunity for the team to flex its attacking muscles.

Italy don’t have a good record in South Africa, and are missing most of their key players, while Georgia are currently 11th in the World Rugby rankings.

If the Boks stay hungry, they will rack up some big numbers over the next three weeks – and those numbers could go a long way towards breaking this group’s existing attacking records.

@rugby365com

*Picture credit: Suresh Rajcoomar