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Were the Springboks the world's best team in 2021?
The RugbyPass Round Table writers answer the big questions at the end of 2021, looking back at the year that was in context to what lays ahead. Alex McLeod (AM), Tom Vinicombe (TV), Nick Turnbull (NT), Mike Rehu (MR), Ben Smith (BS), Jordan King (JK), Jack O’Rourke (JO) and Finn Morton (FM) weigh in on a range of topics on the international game and more in this end-of-2021 review.
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After sitting out the entire 2020 season, the Springboks returned to rugby as World Rugby’s number one ranked team.
They had limited preparation for the Lions series, getting in one clash against Georgia and one more warm-up under the guise of South Africa ‘A’. They opened the Lions series with a loss before fighting back from 1-nil down to win the series 2-1.
After beating Argentina twice at home, they headed down under to complete the rest of the Rugby Championship but their title hopes unravelled with back-to-back losses to the Wallabies before a third loss to the All Blacks. During this stretch, they gave up the number one ranking briefly.
In the final round, they were able to arrest their losing streak by turning the tables on New Zealand to finish with a win. Heading to Europe they won their first two games against Wales and Scotland before a final loss to England at Twickenham.
They finished the season still holding World Rugby’s number one ranking, but were they the best team?
Were the Springboks the world’s best team in 2021?
NT: No, but they were one of the better sides. The losses to England and Australia would not make me comfortable in agreeing to that question.
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I think they were a very good side and would be in the mix with New Zealand. I’d probably have to call it a dead-heat between New Zealand and South Africa despite the World Rugby Rankings.
FM: While the Springboks may have won the war against the Lions, they largely lost the battle against some of the best nations in the rugby world.
Two losses to Australia, and one to both New Zealand and England suggest that they aren’t still the world’s best team. In fact, not only were they not the best team this year, but you could mount an argument for why they weren’t even in the top five, with Ireland and France also impressing last month.
AM: No. After missing an entire year of test rugby in 2020, losses to the All Blacks, Wallabies and England have further blemished South Africa’s reign as world champions this year.
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Instead, if you ignore the World Rugby rankings (which are a bit of a farce anyway), the team that continues to build and grow and looks the most threatening less than two years out from the next World Cup is France.
TV: Truth be told, there wasn’t any one team who really shone out consistently throughout the season. The All Blacks may have been the best throughout the early part of the year and easily topped the Rugby Championship ladder but struggled in the Northern Hemisphere.
It would be hard to award the ‘title’ of world’s best to the Springboks either, given their run of losses against Australia and New Zealand while Six Nations champions Wales didn’t exactly light the world on fire, even when they were winning throughout February and March.
JO: The Boks emerged from their self-imposed isolation in 2021 expecting that they would still be a world champion team. Overall they have had a very good season, but they have burned through a lot of goodwill from their World Cup win, and it will be interesting to see if they can maintain their place at the top.
MR: In a word no. They are a great squad that will be in any mix when there’s a knock out competition like the RWC but they have frailities that the Wallabies and others exposed effectively.
BS: They ended the year with World Rugby’s number one tag but they did not put in a convincing season, losing five tests and finishing with a win rate marginally above 60 per cent.
Just like the 2019 Rugby World Cup will always be South Africa’s, the 2021 Rugby Championship title will forever read New Zealand and the Springboks will always be third place finishers.
It’s all about titles and wins, which can never be removed. The number one ranking is one of the only things you can never keep forever and inevitably will be lost.
The Springboks only major silverware this year was the Lions series win, which was a struggle. After losing the first test they had to fight back to keep the series alive and they were minutes away from a drawn series before an aerial blunder gave them a chance to win the series.
In their only annual tournament, The Rugby Championship, they finished third, conceding the Nelson Mandela Plate to Australia while New Zealand retained the Freedom Cup and took home the Rugby Championship title. Having last won a truncated version of the tournament, they still haven’t won a full length version of it.
If you are the best team in the world, you win silverware, particularly the major tournaments you compete in. Only the blind believers in South Africa would put the 60 per cent Boks at the top of the rugby tree in 2021 as the world’s best team.
JK: You’re as good as your last game for me, so no. Couple that with their losses to Australia and New Zealand, and I feel I have a compelling case for my answer. The scariest team in world rugby as of every country’s final game is France.
Comments on RugbyPass
We will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
2 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
1 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
2 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
9 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
9 Go to commentsExeter were thumped by 38 points. And they only had to hop on a train.
39 Go to commentsI am De Groot.
1 Go to commentsHad hoped you might write an article on this game, Nick. It’s a good one. Things have not gone as smoothly for ROG since beating Leinster last year at the Aviva in the CC final. LAR had the Top 14 Final won till Raymond Rhule missed a simple tackle on the excellent Ntamack, and Toulouse reaped the rewards of just staying in the fight till the death. Then the disruption of the RWC this season. LAR have not handled that well, but they were not alone, and we saw Pau heading the Top 14 table at one stage early season. I would think one of the reasons for the poor showing would have to be that the younger players coming through, and the more mature amongst the group outside the top 25/30, are not as strong as would be hoped for. I note that Romain Sazy retired at the end of last season. He had been with LAR since 2010, and was thus one of their foundation players when they were promoted to Top 14. Records show he ended up with 336 games played with LAR. That is some experience, some rock in the team. He has been replaced for the most part by Ultan Dillane. At 30, Dillane is not young, but given the chances, he may be a fair enough replacement for Sazy. But that won’be for more than a few years. I honestly know little of the pathways into the LAR setup from within France. I did read somewhere a couple of years ago that on the way up to Top 14, the club very successfully picked up players from the academies of other French teams who were not offered places by those teams. These guys were often great signings…can’t find the article right now, so can’t name any….but the Tadgh Beirne type players. So all in all, it will be interesting to see where the replacements for all the older players come from. Only Lleyd’s and Rhule from SA currently, both backs. So maybe a few SA forwards ?? By contrast, Leinster have a pretty clear line of good players coming through in the majority of positions. Props maybe a weak spot ? And they are very fleet footed and shrewd in appointing very good coaches. Or maybe it is also true that very good coaches do very well in the Leinster setup. So, Nick, I would fully concurr that “On the evidence of Saturday’s semi-final between the two clubs, the rebuild in the Bay of Biscay is going to take longer than it is on the east coast of Ireland”
11 Go to commentsWhat was the excuse for the other knockout blowouts then? Does the result not prove the Saints were just so much better? Wise call to put your eggs in one basket when you’ve got 2 comps simultaneously finishing.
39 Go to commentsReally hope Kuruvoli and his partner rock the Canes.
1 Go to commentsI wonder what impact Samson has had on their attack, as the team seems less prone to trundle it up the middle, take the tackle and then trundle it up again. I lost faith in the coach last year as the Rebelss looked like a 2nd/3rd rate South African team. I also disliked Gordon standing back, often ignored as the forward battle went on and on. Maybe its our Aussie way of not getting off our A***’s until the enemy is at the gate.
86 Go to commentsThanks for the write up. Great to see the Rebs winning, I am a little interested in how they will go against the remaining kiwi teams, I think they’ve only played Hurricanes and Highlanders but how great to see these players performing!! I also see Parling has a job beyond June 30! A good move by RA? Also how do you fix the Rebels previously scratchy defence?
86 Go to commentsbe smart - go black
14 Go to commentsNext week the Crusaders hopefully have Scott Barrett back. Will be great to have the captain back. Hopefully he will be the All Black captain as well.
12 Go to commentsExciting place to be for the young fella. I expected he was French Polynesian when I saw him included in the France 6N squad (after seeing him in NZs), and therefor be strong grounds we might loose him to rugby down here. Good, in that he is good enough to warrant such a profile, and from a journalism’s fan interaction aspect, to finally get a back ground story on the fella. Hope he has settled into NZ OK and that at least one rugby country will fit with him to help his development, which, if so, he should surely continue for a few years, and then that he can experience France to it’s fullest with a bit more maturity and less reliance on family than you would have at his current age. A good 3 or 4 years before he would be ready for International duty if he wanted to wait. Of course he already sounds good enough to accept a call up, and to cap himself, in the more immediate future (he’d have to be very very good in the case of the ABs), and he’ll get a great taste of that being with the Canes who have a bunch who are just a few years further into their career and looking likely Internationals themselves.
14 Go to comments