Brace yourself, SA. The Springboks are going into the World Cup as joint favourites. It is no place for the timid nor the brave, no land for the tentative nor the cocksure, no time for fence-sitting nor the blindness of patriotism.
It’s the Rugby World Cup, a time when silliness is serious business, when form meets luck for an uncertain waltz, a whisky tango foxtrot meeting of minds, matter and madness. It’s the Rugby World Cup, and the Boks are favourites, or, at least, second and third favourites depending on who you bet with. Again. The Boks are always second favourites until they become the favourites when the All Blacks flatter to deceive. Again. Maybe.
New Zealand are, despite themselves, tipped to win. William Hill has them at 11/4, with France at 3/1 and the Boks just behind them at 7/2. Ireland are 9/2 and, somehow, the Eddie Jones XV are an outside shout at 12/1. Sixteen years ago, a lifetime, the best price on the All Blacks was 4-7, having won 34 of the 39 Tests they had played since the 2003 World Cup.
SA were being offered at 13/2 in 2007. How I wish I’d put a few bob on them then. But, you never know, you simply never know. Educated guesses are still guesses. Form, luck, minds, matter and madness. England, for example, were 33/1 to win, and made the final with two big matches that saw off Australia in the quarters and France in the semifinals.
At the Stade Velodrome in Marseilles, a French journalist taught me how to say “four more years” in French. I think I said “quatre ans de plus” to every Australian journalist at the after-match function that night before it nearly came back to bite me the very next day at the Stade Velodrome as the Boks survived a bum-clincher against Fiji.
France felt magical in 2007. Following the Boks around was a pleasure, a team comfortable with themselves and others, a far cry from the paranoia the 2003 squad was burdened with. They handled themselves like champions elect. In John Smit, they had a leader they trusted and had a telepathic sense of what needed to be done and when. It felt similar in 2011, but, then, there was Bryce Lawrence and his love-in with David Pocock at the breakdown in the quarterfinal in Wellington and that dream ended before it began.
I’ve been told the 2019 Boks had a sense of the 2007 and 2011 side about them. They were 4/1 to win, the All Blacks were at 6/4. Rassie Erasmus and Siya Kolisi created a team that was a team. It was and is not just the Rassie show, he told Don McRae in the Guardian recently: “People see it like that, but ask my players and you will see it’s our [joint] plan. When they’re on the field we try to help them. All coaches do it. I don’t think it’s controlling. It’s all about our togetherness.”
The superb autobiography Erasmus wrote with David O’Sullivan opens with a line in which Erasmus claims he is “uncomplicated”, a word O’Sullivan disagrees with. He grew up knowing hardship, from a place and mindset far away from what he has become.
The Springboks are a tiptoeing thunder roll two days before they start against Scotland in Marseilles on Sunday. They have been saying all the right things, Duane Vermeulen has spoken about being old but with a new spring in his step. Grant Williams was humbled and thankful that he had made it to the tournament after he was knocked out against Argentina in his first start for the Boks.
And, so, to Sunday and Scotland after the Rugby World Cup that opens with a bang on Friday night. The All Blacks against the French, the latter carrying the burden of a nation and the former the burden of history. Winning the World Cup means everything, but, for Erasmus there is a little more: “Winning the World Cup is nice and for South Africans that trophy is massive. But, for me, the most beautiful thing is seeing what we have created as a team. Look around the dressing room and that’s what you see — the trust and the togetherness which matters most of all.”
What odds would you get on who has created the most beautiful team?
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