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The Springboks got drunk on their own hype
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Wellington, 2025. New Zealand beaten by a record score. 43-10. Thirty-six unanswered points in the second half. A brace for Cheslin Kolbe. A masterclass from Damian Willemse. Six tries to one.
We heard about that game so often in the build-up to this Test that it began to feel like a reference point for the new Springboks. Proof that South Africa had evolved. That Tony Brown had added wit to the muscle. That the Boks could still bludgeon teams, but could now also manipulate space, shift the point of attack and unleash their backs before a defence had time to settle.
Which made Ellis Park all the more baffling. It was as if the Boks had learned nothing. South Africa did not lose because they were too ambitious. They lost because, for long stretches, they barely tried to fire a shot.
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Box kick. Big carry. Big hit. Scrum. Repeat.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. The Springboks have won two World Cups by understanding pressure better than anyone. Their scrum remains terrifying. Their defence still folds bodies. Their kicking game can suffocate opponents.
But these Springboks are supposed to have evolved beyond that. And the numbers make the conservatism harder to excuse.
South Africa had enough ball and enough field position. They finished with 51% possession, 61% territory and almost 100 more post-contact metres than New Zealand.
The forwards did their part. The scrum folded New Zealand repeatedly, the maul made ground and the collisions were largely won. You imagine a few of those forwards had some choice words for the backs afterwards. They had built the platform. Nobody seemed especially interested in using it. Too often the next phase was either another carry into traffic or another kick into the air.
Jasper Wiese carried 17 times, comfortably more than any other Springbok. But Willemse was rarely brought in at first receiver, Kriel barely featured and De Allende, on his 100th cap, was mostly asked to run straight. Even Esterhuizen’s try rather proved the point. It came not from slick interplay but from one enormous man getting the ball and deciding he would not be tackled.
So much of South Africa’s threat depended on individuals creating something through force rather than the system creating something for individuals.
And yet this is supposed to be one of the staples of Brown’s attack: moving the heavy artillery into the trams, forcing defenders to make uncomfortable decisions and using forwards as links as well as battering rams.
New Zealand did it regularly. Tupou Vaa’i kept popping up in wider channels, giving the All Blacks another carrying and passing option away from the traffic. South Africa’s heavies mostly stayed central.
There was one second-half surge from Eben Etzebeth down the left that immediately made ground. It looked like the sort of moment this attack was supposed to produce routinely. Which begged another obvious question. Where had that been?
South Africa did not necessarily kick too much. Williams’ box kicks often put New Zealand under genuine pressure, and the raw numbers were almost identical: 17 kicks to the All Blacks’ 18.
The problem was what came around them. Too often pressure was built without any real attempt to cash it in through the hands. New Zealand passed 124 times to South Africa’s 106 and were far more willing to shift the point of attack once space appeared.
Fabian Holland’s charge-down try was the obvious punishment, but it would be too easy to make the kicking game the villain. The deeper issue was faith in an old formula: win the collisions, squeeze at the set piece, kick well and trust that the game will eventually bend your way.
Perhaps sustained success had made the formula feel infallible. It is hard to imagine a side this experienced being genuinely arrogant, but a few seasoned Springboks may simply have forgotten what losing regularly to the All Blacks feels like. Against lesser sides, bash and crash so often works. Against New Zealand, it can become a dangerous kind of complacency.
And when the Boks did finally try to move the ball with ambition, they looked rusty doing it. Passes went behind runners. Timing broke down. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu had a poor game, overrunning Williams and struggling to impose himself when South Africa did finally try to play. Willemse tried to inject width but too often the move died before it had properly begun. Perhaps that was why they kept kicking.
But that raises another problem. Why pick this backline, and why appoint an assistant coach with such a clear attacking ideology, if you are not prepared to trust either? In Wellington, they did
There, Willemse was everywhere. Kolbe was brought into the game repeatedly. The point of attack shifted. Forwards handled. New Zealand were pulled apart by a team with chutzpah and energy, not merely asked to dig deep against a wave of battering rams. Next week requires more than better execution. It may require a philosophical correction.
Manie Libbok has to come into serious consideration. Whatever his imperfections, Libbok demands that other South Africans play. He stands flatter, moves the ball early and searches for space rather than another collision on his own. Feinberg-Mngomezulu might be the better rugby player, but there’s a case to be made that Libbok is the better flyhalf.
There is also an argument for getting Willemse much closer to the action. Perhaps that means starting him at 12. Perhaps it simply means stationing him at first receiver no matter who starts at 12 or 10. He is the form player in the South African backline. He has to be more involved.
Whatever it is, something has to change. Because this was not a defeat caused by overplaying. Quite the opposite.
South Africa had spent a year pointing to Wellington as evidence of what they had become. Then, when New Zealand arrived at Ellis Park, they played as if none of it had happened.
