The Springboks ended their international year by completing the circle with a victory over Wales in Cardiff that delivered a remarkably similar score to the game that started the season against the same opponents at Twickenham — 45-12 at the weekend as opposed to 41-13 in June.
Yet it is the numbers that apply to what has come between the two games rather than those scores that tell the full story of what the Boks have achieved at the start of this World Cup cycle.
That they won 11 of their 13 games, with the two defeats coming by a solitary point, is in itself impressive. It becomes even more impressive considering that had Jean Kleyn not been prevented from playing because of a nerve injury sustained on the eve of the game, Cameron Hanekom when he came on in Cardiff would have been the 52nd player used this year by Rassie Erasmus.
That is more an indicator of Bok growth than the Rugby Championship title and the prizes they may have gathered individually and as a team at the World Rugby Awards ceremony on Sunday night. To grow their depth as much as the Boks have while still winning and holding onto their No 1 ranking signifies mission accomplished.
Erasmus has easier games to deal with at the start of the next international season than he had this year, when after the appetiser against Wales the Boks started out against the then No 2 side in the world, Ireland. That will give him another chance to spread the net and test depth. After that though he will be whittling the size of the squad down to about 35 players.
A measure of how successful the quest to grow depth has been is the number of players who have entered themselves into the conversation when it comes to deciding who stays and who goes once the cut is made.
In most positions Erasmus faces tricky choices, with the difficulty centred on who to leave out rather than who to include. Players such as Ruan Nortjé, Elrigh Louw and Gerhard Steenekamp have made huge strides in their first proper run of games at international level, and Aphelele Fassi has arrived as an international fullback of top quality.
Nortjé wasn’t even in the squad at the start, but was called up because of injury, and until his own injury prevented him from being part of the end of year tour he was shaping as a quality international lock.
The players who have announced themselves in the latter stages of the season have shaded out the memory of some of the positive contributions of the newcomers who made waves earlier in the campaign. BJ Dixon didn’t make it on the end-of-year tour but he was considered good enough to wear the No 7 jersey in the first game against the All Blacks. He may have lost ground to Louw latterly, but Dixon is still a developing player and Erasmus will have given him pointers on what to work on.
The most obvious breakthrough player was Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who missed the last two months because of injury. Yet while Feinberg-Mngomezulu has marked himself as the flyhalf for the next World Cup, the most recent game provided an opportunity for Jordan Hendrikse to enter the conversation at flyhalf, and he took it with both hands.
Flyhalf is a key position and the Boks are blessed to now have five players who can all front in the No 10 jersey on a given day — Handré Pollard, Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Manie Libbok, Hendrikse and let’s not forget Damian Willemse, who is one of a few established international players who missed out on the international season because of injury.
Hendrikse’s performance in Cardiff provided a microcosmic parallel view of the road the Boks have been on since the game that started their season in London — his previous start was in that game at Twickenham where it was nervy and patchy. This time he took his opportunity properly and showed his undeniable class and potential.
As did the Bok team. While the scores were similar, the most recent performance was an improvement on what they did against Wales in June.
If you wanted to be churlish you could argue that the Boks once again didn’t quite capitalise to the full extent on the scoreboard that their dominance should have demanded, but the statistics about possession, territory and tackle count speak of complete Bok dominance. It is indeed a wonder that the visitors only scored seven tries. It could easily have been 12 such was the extent of the Bok grip on the game.
In terms of all-round performance, the Boks do end the international season feeling they have things to work on, but they also end it having made demonstrable strides from where they started in June. And they started as world champs, so that’s saying something.
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