2026 WXV Global Series preview: South Africa

If the past 12 months have taught us anything, it’s that if a game of rugby lasted only 40 minutes, the Springbok Women would be Women’s Rugby World Cup contenders.

At Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025, South Africa went into half-time level with the reigning champions, having matched New Zealand’s physicality and disrupted their attack. The Black Ferns eventually pulled away to win 46-17, but the Springbok Women had shown that the gap was narrowing.

At FNB Stadium two weekends ago, the pattern repeated itself. South Africa, again, produced a powerful, competitive first half before New Zealand’s greater attacking variety and ability to exploit space took control. The Black Ferns won 52-20.

Those performances underline both South Africa’s progress and their remaining weakness. They can impose themselves on the world’s best teams, but they cannot yet sustain that pressure for the full 80 minutes.

Until they become more composed, adaptable and dangerous when matches open up, they will be contenders in passages rather than genuine Women’s Rugby World Cup contenders.

SA Rugby have recognised the need for progress and orchestrated a busy 2026 for the women’s team. South Africa retained the Rugby Africa Women’s Cup before drawing a two-Test home series against the USA – winning 34-21 before losing 26-19 – and then swept an away series against Fiji, winning 55-12 and 29-22.

The defeat by New Zealand was their latest substantial examination. Despite the margin, it confirmed that last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final was not an isolated performance.

Their progress has been built on a more technically accomplished forward pack. The physicality remains obvious, but South Africa are no longer relying solely on collisions from isolated runners fuelled by emotion. Their lineout has become a source of attacking invention. Their maul is a genuine weapon. Their scrum can generate pressure and territory. Their breakdown work is increasingly organised and aggressive.

Against New Zealand, South Africa carried more often, enjoyed more possession, won more turnovers and were perfect from their own nine scrums. On several metrics they dominated the contest. However, on the metrics that decided it, they were second best.

Despite having less of the ball, New Zealand made more ground, found more clean breaks and finished with the superior tackle rate. South Africa’s vulnerability defending the edges – exposed during the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 quarter-final – has not been resolved.

For all that activity, the professional base beneath the Springbok Women remains remarkably narrow. The Bulls Daisies are still South Africa’s only fully professional women’s team, while most of the other leading players come through provincial structures that offer far fewer opportunities to train and play together year-round.

That makes the national team’s progress all the more impressive, but it also helps explain the inconsistencies. South Africa are trying to produce an 80-minute international team, without an 80-minute professional environment beneath it.

The Springbok Women have developed a platform capable of troubling the best teams, but not yet the variety or defensive control required to punish them when the game moves beyond the narrow channels.

And it is here that the timing of Swys de Bruin’s departure as head coach feels particularly significant.

He is the man most closely associated with this restoration. He helped transform South Africa from peripheral participants into a team capable of reaching a Women’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final and going toe-to-toe with the Black Ferns. His influence is visible in the cohesion of the forwards, the ambition of the set-piece and the belief that South Africa can dictate terms against superior opposition.

Laurian Johannes-Haupt and Franzel September will lead the Springbok Women as co-head coaches during the WXV Global Series, starting against Wales on Friday 18 September and then taking a trip to Italy in Parma eight days later. Their immediate task is not to abandon de Bruin’s methods, but to evolve them.

Wales have beaten South Africa in six of their eight meetings, although the Springbok Women should travel with greater confidence than they have traditionally carried into this fixture. Italy will be eager for revenge after the Springboks upset the Azzurre 29-14 to progress to the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 knockouts at their expense.

The two matches should reveal whether the Springbok Women have moved beyond being a team that is simply difficult to play against. They need a more varied attack when the first wave is stopped, greater composure after conceding points and better solutions when opponents move the ball quickly from one side of the field to the other. Their backs must become more than beneficiaries of forward momentum. They need to become part of the mechanism that creates it.

There are encouraging signs. Danelle Lochner, the experienced lock, has said the team is trying to give the backs more responsibility, allowing the forwards “a little bit of a break” instead of asking them to “just run and smash into people”.

Babalwa Latsha is the natural starting point. The newly appointed captain is a powerful tighthead prop, an astute scrummager and one of the spiritual leaders of the squad.

Her influence extends beyond the set-piece. Latsha understands what this team represents and the importance of making the Springbok jersey visible to young women across South Africa. She has also inherited the leadership of a side that must now cope with the retirement of Nolusindiso Booi.

Aseza Hele remains one of South Africa’s most potent attacking weapons. The number eight combines power with remarkable mobility and has the ability to turn a static phase into forward momentum. Her hat-trick against Brazil at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 was a reminder of her finishing ability, but her greater value lies in the way she gets South Africa over the gain line when their attack begins to stall. At her best, she is one of the most dangerous loose forwards in the international game.

Pulling the strings is the impressive Libbie Janse van Rensburg at fly-half. In most other teams she might be better suited to inside centre given her ability to carry to the line, but her distribution and kicking game are the best in the squad, and so she carries an extra responsibility. She has pace out wide, with Nadine Roos and the wiry fullback Byrhandre Dolf providing sparks from broken play, but the Boks need to show they can strike with intent rather than opportunism. How Janse van Rensburg performs will be paramount to this.

Now ranked 10th in the World Rugby rankings, South Africa will go into their match with Wales – who sit two places below them – as expected winners. Having already beaten Italy, they will carry confidence into that match as well. If this team is serious about challenging for major honours in the future, anything other than two victories would constitute a failure.

The more important question, however, is not simply how many matches South Africa win in this series, which also includes two home games against Ireland in October. It is whether they can make their rugby feel less dependent on a strong first half and one-dimensional play.

Swys de Bruin’s departure makes that evolution more difficult, but it also gives the team an opportunity to prove that his work created something sustainable rather than something dependent on one coach.

He helped build a team capable of competing with the best. Now, Johannes-Haupt and September must help create the structures and variety required to make that progress sustainable.

The Springbok Women no longer need only a stronger identity. They need a stronger ecosystem around it. The foundations are strong. The ambition is growing. The talent is real.

But the next step is not simply to become more South African, it is to become more complete.