'Fergus had an impressive debut. He is a different personality to Owen'

No one is perfect, he makes mistakes and he has plenty of detractors. But make no mistake, Rassie is a world class operator and history will judge him so.

The first thing I would look at would be the composition of all the squads and the value to european exposure for each, especially to recently promoted teams and those facing relegation battles. Some sort of system that favoured youth and promoted a more competitive spread of experienced talent. I'd seriously look at mimicking Champions League football for a good few months of the year, playing domestic games mid week, worked around jokers and rest of the world downtimes/league gaps.

I'm not sure what this has to do with NZR though?

Utimately the Boks dominate because Rassie and his team are so scientific and so driven. His attention to detail and obsessive analysis smacks of Tom Brady's approach.

He has engineered a system to find and nurture talent from the best schools to the most desolate backwaters. That system has a culture and doctrine very similar to elite military units, it does not tolerate individuals at the expense of the collective.

That machine also churns out three to five world class players in every position. They are encouraged to play in Ireland, England, France and Japan where their performance continues to be monitored according to metrics that is well guarded IP.

Older players are begged to play in the less physical Japanese league as it extends their careers. No Saffa really wants to see Etzebeth or Peter Steph or Pollard play in France or British Isles. And especially not in South Africa, where you just have these big, physical young guns coming out of hyper competitive schools looking for blood.

Last but but no means the least is the rugby public's alignment with the Springbok agenda. We love it when they win between World Cups but there is zero drama if they lose a game or a string of games for the sake of squad depth.

It's taken time to put it together but it has just matured into a relentless machine.

You'd hope with their recent success of course that the game itself is growing as a result in France, that their will be a lot more local talent, and that the current talent will need to be pushed out somewhere else. Hopefully another league rather than a 3rd division etc.

You are suggesting that France's indifferent results over the years bread a disinterest in overseas tours to the point where they were sacrificed by FFR? These results of course coming before the Top 14 took off.

With GD's topic, teams always sent B teams away, so that generated squad rotation, which lead to the league having no problem expanding to more games, but which meant a requirement and firming of sending poor teams away? Sounds like the product has a lot of areas for improvement.

And what it all mutated from is of course the famous laissez faire attitude?

Edit: (547)

When all were writing of the AB's before the Championship, most supporters in SA were concerned about the outcome of the result.

And rightly so.

As bad as the Boks were in the past, I certainly don't think the AB's will ever reach that low. Believe me, it Pains me to type this.

As for the rest, a sincere thanks for coming along....just kidding.

Raggas is definitely in a strong place in general when the fight for 3rd,4th & 5th place is just so unpredictable.

And yes, I'm taking a purely subjective view on the world rankings. And yes, completely ignoring the "official" world rankings. I'm just aligning my reasoning along the expressions of some x international players, and people who have clarity of thought.

Raggas Rules.

It has its positive side, of course; the 2023 AB side was clearly a step or two below previous sides, but they managed to contend the final through sheer desperation.

Expectations do carry a heavy weight, which might explain why the Irish went home after the QF.