OPINION: Future of SA rugby looks bright as Springboks and Junior Boks power on
· Citizen
Rugby teams across the world must be quaking in their boots such is the dominance right now of the Springboks and Junior Boks, who are sweeping all before them.
Visit mchezo.co.za for more information.
The Springboks are currently on a 10-match winning run, and since the start of 2024 have won 25 games while losing just four, and over that time have been constantly rotating their team and expanding their squad depth.
The Junior Springboks, the national U20 side, have been in similarly top form and are on the verge of going back-to-back in the U20 Junior World Championship for the first time. They take on France’s U20 team in the final in Georgia on Saturday.
Since the start of last year’s Junior World Champs, which saw the Junior Boks pick up their second title, after triumphing on home soil back in 2012, they have been unbeaten in 16 matches, while winning 15 of them.
It is an incredible display of dominance from South Africa’s senior and junior rugby teams, and bodes incredibly well for the future of rugby in the country.
Double champs
If the Junior Boks triumph over France on Saturday they will become double defending champions heading into next year’s Junior World Champs, which will be the same as the Springboks, who will head into next year’s World Cup in Australia as double defending champions. They won the World Cup in 2019 and 2023.
The Boks will most likely stretch their current winning run to 11 games this weekend, as it will take a monumental effort for the Welsh to upset them in Durban. Rassie Erasmus’ team have incredibly beaten every Six Nations side and Rugby Championship team over the past 12 months.
But that run will come under threat in August and September, as they will face Los Pumas in Argentina, followed by four matches against the All Blacks in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
If the Boks can emerge from those five games with wins, they will be on a 16-match win streak, which would put Nick Mallett’s Springbok record 17-match win streak of 1997 and 1998 under threat during their Nations Championship Tests up north in November.