FIGHTING FIT: The Boks are in a tight spot, which is where they thrive

Being 1-0 down in the Greatest Rivalry series was not where the Boks wanted to be, but it’s where they are. How they respond will tell us about the team’s future.

Perhaps, somewhere in the subconscious, the Springboks lacked that killer edge against the All Blacks in the first Test of the Greatest Rivalry series on Saturday, 22 August, because they knew there was a second chance.

In the build-up to the first Test at Ellis Park, coach Rassie Erasmus went to great lengths to emphasise that the four-match series could only be won in the third Test. That is mathematically true, but not necessarily psychologically sound for players to hear.

As it turned out, the Boks lost 33-16 in an uncharacteristic, error-ridden performance. It included 23 turnovers, and from 11 entries into the All Blacks 22m area, they only came away with an average of 0.9 points per entry.

In one way, it showed that the world champions did a lot right. Making 11 entries into the All Blacks’ red zone is a significant return. It indicates that parts of the Boks’ game were working well. But the poor conversion rate might be down to a lack of desperation and patience, which suggests it was more of a mental issue than a technical one.

It’s only a theory, because no team goes out not to win. But the mind is a complex thing and when you take away jeopardy – there is a second chance – it could manifest as poor execution.

Erasmus’s comments before the Test correctly pointed to a series that couldn’t be won at Ellis Park. And obviously it couldn’t be lost in game one either. But whose position would you rather be in heading to Cape Town for the second Test?

“This game, which is going to be played on Saturday [the first Test], is definitely not the game that will determine [the series],” Erasmus said before Ellis Park. “We’ve seen it in the British & Irish Lions series [the Boks lost the first Test in 2021 and went on to win the series 2-1]. We’ve seen it many times in World Cup pools. We lost a pool game.

“It is who’s still standing and how many men you’ve still got fit and ready to go when it gets to Orlando [third Test] and then eventually to Baltimore [the fourth].”

Erasmus’s comments may have sent a subliminal message that losing the opening Test was okay. That was not his intention and he even half-contradicted himself by adding: “There’s not a management member, a team member, a coaching staff, a physio, a medic, who doesn’t want us to win the first Test match. We will definitely try our utmost to win the first Test.”

Effort was not the problem at Ellis Park, though – accuracy and execution were. And only the Springbok management will have proper insight into why that was the case.

The Boks are clearly on the back foot now. They’re in a corner and in some ways have morphed from the series favourites to underdogs. Which is where they like to be. It’s a position from which they’ve so often produced their best rugby.

In 2021, after losing the first Test 22-17 to the British & Irish Lions, the Boks bounced back with an emphatic 27-9 second Test victory and then edged the third Test 19-16.