Former England captains Mike Tindall and Courtney Lawes reckon the Springboks are already shaping up as an almost unbeatable force heading towards the 2027 World Cup.
The four-time world champions swept aside England, Scotland and Wales in the opening half of the Nations Championship, with three bonus-point wins and a fresh wave of successful debutants.
Speaking on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby XTRA podcast with Lawes, Tindall pointed to the unique way Bok supremo Rassie Erasmus is managing his squad to maximise players’ potential.
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“You look at it in terms of the URC teams in Europe: the Springboks are the other way around to most others that are sort of smashing it at club level, whether it be Bordeaux, Northampton or whoever it might be but internationally, they don’t quite gel,” Tindall said.
“Their players, when they put on that Springbok jersey, just become different animals – and they’re already pretty good animals before they put the jersey on.
“Their depth, and the unique style that Rassie deals with it in terms of picking his team three months in advance and letting them know who’s playing where and why, and then the new guys who come in who suddenly step up.
“It’s been super impressive and it’s a credit to their setup. They are going to be the team to beat going into 2027, everyone knows that.
“Can we have that moment where someone shows a small crack in their armour somewhere, and then everyone can sort of pick at it? I don’t know, it’s going to take an impressive team to do that.”
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Lawes, meanwhile, focused on how far the Boks have progressed since defending their crown at the 2023 World Cup, crediting the culture Erasmus has built within the camp.
“They’ve definitely kicked on, which is impressive because they won the World Cup but they’re actually operating almost like a religion now. Genuinely, any player that comes under the fold is just completely locked in from the word go.
“Players that are not involved in the game at the weekend and maybe being a bit disgruntled and giving some bad feedback to XYZ or whoever, like could you ever imagine that coming out of the Springbok camp? Absolutely not.
“The environment they’ve got and that Rassie’s created, and obviously he’s been in charge for a while now and that is the perks of having a coach of that calibre being in charge of an operation for that long, is just so seamless.
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“Players coming in and being completely engrossed in it from day one and just seem to know what they’re doing from the first minute.
“It’s just that clear that they’re organised and structured, and credit to South Africa, they’re going to be a very, very difficult team to beat for the coming years.”
Photo: @Springboks/X
The post ‘Rassie has Boks operating like a religion’ appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Former England captains Mike Tindall and Courtney Lawes reckon the Springboks are already shaping up as an almost unbeatable force heading towards the 2027 World Cup.
The post ‘Rassie has Boks operating like a religion’ appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
