Now is not time to experiment as Boks prepare to cross a new frontier
Since the start of the Springboks’ end-of-year tour their coach Jacques Nienaber has been consistent in speaking about the balance between the need to win and the need to push ancillary goals such as growing depth, but now is the time for one goal too far outweigh the other.
At the end of a trying year where they had to jump through more hoops and put up with more hardships than most of their opponents when it came to dealing with Covid curveballs, the Boks are on the cusp of ending the year by achieving something no Bok team has done before. A win over England on Saturday will confirm that they retain their No 1 status in their first playing year after winning a Rugby World Cup.
No World Cup-winning Bok team has done that before. In 1996, the year after Francois Pienaar’s team famously became the first South African national side to win rugby’s Holy Grail, the Boks surrendered their No 1 status by losing a home series against New Zealand.