Boks are ‘best team in the world’
South Africa and France have almost always enjoyed a cordial rugby relationship, but that friendship was tested over the acrimony of the Rugby World Cup 2023 (RWC 2023) vote.
Long story short, South Africa’s was the preferred bid, but the French delegation lobbied behind the scenes and “won” the right to host RWC 2023. It led to rancour and recriminations, but nothing could change the outcome.
And, as luck would have it, France and the Springboks are on a potential collision course at the tournament, to be staged later this year. They could meet in the quarterfinals, or even in the final. They could also, of course, not meet at all, if both or one of them stumble out earlier than expected.
To add to the potential heat of the spice, the Boks won RWC 2019 against all odds while France are on a 12-match winning streak. They have just completed an unbeaten 2022, winning 10 out of 10 Tests, including 30-26 over the Boks in a wonderful clash in Marseille last November.
That match had red cards and controversy and was one, despite playingfor 67 minutes with 14 men, the Boks could, and possibly should have, won.
Despite a year in which performances ranged from sublime (beating the All Blacks 26-10 at Mbombela) to ridiculous (losing 25-17 to Australia in Adelaide), by the time November came, the Boks were in ominous form.
Coach Jacques Nienaber and director of rugby Rassie Erasmus tinkered with the team all through the year with an eye to making the November tour the final stage to play their best combinations against France, and Ireland a week earlier.
Edwards says Boks are best in world
The Boks’ performances in November, if not the results, certainly caught France’s attention. Les Blues defence coach Shaun Edwards, a man who has sent out sides against the Boks for more than a decade as Wales and British & Lions defence guru, knows what he saw.
“The World Rugby Rankings are brilliant for fans, to see how their team is doing, and I know Ireland are top. But, for me, South Africa are the best team in the world because they are the reigning world champions and I think for a lot of the Autumn Nations Series, they played like world champions,” Edwards told World Rugby’s official website.
“They were everything that people talk about – they were powerful and physical and probably the best in the world at mauls and scrums – but they are so much more than that.
“They have got so much speed on the edges and score a lot of tries from inside their own half, so to beat them was marvellous.”
Edwards might be trying to deflect some of the obvious expectations off the France team in such an important year for French rugby.
Building depth
France have spent three years under coach Fabien Galthiébuilding the squad to peak at RWC 2023. The coach has stuck to the development of key players they identified years ago with a view to winning the world title on home soil.
Changes to their domestic system, such as enforcing the rule that each professional club has to contract at least 16 French players, have grown depth. That is vital for matches and tours that fall out of the Test window.
In 2021, many French Test players, including star scrumhalf and captain Antoine Dupont, were not released for the three-Test tour of Australia due to the maximum number of games they were allowed to play, and Covid restrictions. They lost the series 2-1 but built depth.
After a perfect 2022, which started with a Six Nations Grand Slam, there is a danger that perhaps they have peaked too soon. Only time will tell, but there is no argument that France have built a formidable squad with depth in almost every position.
They toured Japan last July without most of their first-choice players and won both Tests.
“I think it was a marvellous thing to go over there and to come away with two victories because it came on the back of a long, hard Top 14 season, and the matches were played in boiling-hot conditions, it was stiflingly hot, so I am told,” said Edwards.
“You are going into July and some of these lads had been playing for nearly 11 months at that stage, certainly training for that long, but the motivation was still high.
“I thought it was a very strong performance, from what wasn’t what you would call our first team, against a proud Japan team who in the past have been giant killers and have given a lot of teams a lot of trouble.”
The confidence of those wins filtered into the November Tests which saw a narrow win over Australia (30-29) before victory over the Boks, followed by a more comfortable victory over Japan.
The margins were slim, but France eked out wins in the tight games, a good sign heading into a World Cup year.
“To play in the (RWC) quarterfinal, semifinal and final is a very difficult thing to do, and while we’re not saying we are definitely going to be there, this was the only chance you have to replicate the situation,” Edwards said.
“We tried to put some pressure on the players (by using it as a Rugby World Cup scenario), to see if they were mentally strong enough to deliver three consecutive high-level performances.” DM
