Golden era Boks: Which one is the best?

OPINION: As the 2024 season draws to a close, we can without a doubt state that it’s been one of the most successful Springbok seasons to date.

But this ‘golden era’ of Bok success has not been an overnight sensation with the current crop’s journey starting in 2018 and surprising friend and foe to start their path to greatness.

There is, of course another Bok era that’s been highly successful, and that’s the class of 2007-2009, and this begs the question: which era can be dubbed as the greatest and why?

Let’s rewind back to 2006, the Springboks were looking nowhere near a team that could be triumphant in 2007 in France.

Having played 12 Tests, winning a mere five and losing seven for a 42 percent return, it didn’t scream ‘title contenders’ to the world in the lead up to the 2007 global showpiece.

With home losses to France, New Zealand, and away losses to Ireland, England and a record 49-0 drubbing at the hands of Australia, a World Cup win in 2007 seemed like a pipe dream.

The Boks under Jake White flipped the script in 2007 and boosted their winning percentage up to 82 percent, losing only three out of 17 Tests played.

Those losses came in the then Tri Nations (now Rugby Championship) as Jake White decided to wrap his best players in cotton wool ahead of the global showpiece later that year.

On a provincial level, the Bulls have won the Super 14 title against the Sharks in a Kings Park classic, with the majority of the Springbok squad coming from Pretoria and Durban.

Their 36-0 victory over England during the pool stage of the World Cup made the world sit up and realise that maybe they have turned the corner, and it would be five weeks later where they would meet the same England in the Final at the Stade de France to claim South Africa’s second World Cup.

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What was to follow was a rollercoaster 2008 season under new coach Peter de Villiers – with four losses during the Tri Nations to finish as the wooden spooners, but still managing a satisfactory 69 percent winning ratio, all in preparation for the 2009 B&I Lions series.

The Boks went on to have one of their most memorable and successful seasons in 2009, with a 2-1 series victory over the B&I Lions, winning the Tri Nations and Freedom Cup with three consecutive victories over New Zealand as well as claiming the Nelson Mandela Challenge Plate against Australia.

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Fast forward to 2015, the Boks managed to reach the World Cup semifinal which they effectively lost due to a Dan Carter drop goal, but the blemish would still be the ‘Brighton miracle’ where they suffered a historic loss to Japan in their pool opener under Heyneke Meyer.

In 2016 under Allister Coetzee, they managed to scrape a mere four wins out of 12 Tests, with two big losses to New Zealand, a first-ever home loss to Ireland, a first-ever away loss to Argentina and suffering defeat to Italy for the first time as well as the end of their 10 year winning streak against England.

Things started to look better in 2017, with a 3-0 home series whitewash against France and two convincing home and away wins against Argentina.

That hype was short-lived when they suffered a record 0-57 defeat to New Zealand in Albany and a 3-38 loss to Ireland in Dublin, which effectively marked the end of Allister Coetzee’s tenure as Bok coach, having suffered a loss against Wales a week later as well.

Everything changed in 2018 under Rassie Erasmus, despite the fact that they won 50 percent of their Tests, they won a home series to England by 2-1 and got the ultimate revenge on New Zealand by defeating the Kiwis in Wellington for the first time since Nick Mallett’s Boks of 1998.

That season set the Boks up for a highly successful 2019 season – winning the Rugby Championship for the first time since 2009 and despite going down to New Zealand during the pool stage of the World Cup, they managed to become the first and still the only team to win the grand daddy having lost a pool game in the process as well as winning both the Rugby Championship and World Cup in the same year.

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The 2020 global pandemic disrupted any plans the World Champions had in preparation for the B&I Lions’ visit in 2021.

Without playing a single Test that year, they went into 2021 underdone while the Six Nations sides had preparation before the pandemic struck meaning their players were battle-hardened having played in 2020 and 2021.

The Boks on the other hand were still confined to strict protocols due to the global pandemic, and their two-Test series in preparation for the B&I Lions series against Georgia were thrown into disarray after the first Test when a host of Georgian players tested positive and the second Test had to be cancelled.

This led to the South Africa ‘A’ side effectively becoming the Springbok side that would face the Lions prior to the Test series to gain some match fitness, a move that would pay-off as South Africa won the series by 2-1 after losing the opening match.

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They had mixed results in the 2021 and 2022 Rugby Championship, with the former season’s matches played all in Australia due to the ongoing pandemic and having to live in strict bio-bubbles in order to minimise the spreading of the virus.

Despite not winning the Rugby Championship in 2023, they went into the World Cup with the toughest draw imaginable, having to face two of the three top-five ranked teams in the world at the time in Scotland and Ireland.

Despite losing to the latter, they managed to repeat their 2019 heroics by beating a red-hot France in their home tournament in the quarterfinal, a gritty England outfit in the semifinal before getting another one in the World Cup Final over the old foe New Zealand – all three victories clinched by a solitary point.

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Now as the 2024 season is nearing it’s end with the Boks’ last Test against Wales this weekend, reflecting back makes for great reading.

The Boks have used 50 players throughout this season, with Jean Kleyn marking No.51 this weekend, and it could be 52 should Bulls loose forward Cameron Hanekom make his debut off the bench against Wales.

Despite sharing a series with Ireland thanks to a late Ciaran Frawley drop goal, they managed to beat Australia twice away, New Zealand twice at home to mark four wins on the bounce against the Kiwis and shared the spoils with Argentina in the Rugby Championship.

A host of debutants were given opportunities during the course of the season without compromising on results.

The 2024 Boks have won the Rugby Championship, Nelson Mandela Challenge Plate and the Freedom Cup and have three out of the four nominated players up for the World Rugby Player of the Year award, with Sasha Feinburg-Mngomezulu also nominated for the Breakthrough Player of the Year award.

Many would say it’s unfair to compare era’s in the game as it’s ever-changing and evolving, but this is undoubtedly the best Springbok team of all time and the feeling is that they will only get better as they build towards a historic three-peat in Australia 2027.

@Angyboyj

@rugby365com