The South African rugby collective produced a mixed bag of results in 2022.

There were title successes for the Stormers in the inaugural United Rugby Championship (URC) and for the Blitzboks at the Commonwealth Games staged in Birmingham. The senior national teams failed to win silverware at major tournaments and slipped down the world rankings.

That said, the Springbok Women took a giant leap forward when they featured at their first World Cup since 2014. The Springboks got some answers with regard to their depth in the lead-up to the 2023 World Cup in France.

The year 2022 was monumental for the franchises, when two teams contested the inaugural URC final, and three – the Bulls, the Stormers and the Sharks – qualified for the Champions Cup, the world’s premier club competition.

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Franchises face fight to survive in Europe

It’s fair to say that the South Africans have exceeded expectations in Europe, and all that remains is for the Boks to join an expanded Six Nations tournament – possibly in 2024 – to complete the migration to the northern hemisphere.

DM168 understands that negotiations are at an advanced stage, and that outgoing CEO Jurie Roux has been retained as a consultant by the South African Rugby Union (Saru) in order to finalise a private equity deal with CVC Capital Partners, which own stakes in the Six Nations, the URC and the English Premiership. The partnership could have massive commercial benefits for Saru and boost rugby in this country to the next level. Getting this deal over the line will be one of Saru’s biggest priorities in 2023.

South Africa’s franchises have done well to qualify for the Champions Cup and, in the case of the Bulls and the Sharks, have made promising starts to their respective campaigns. Whether these three sides have the resources to win the Champions Cup is another story.

These teams will do well to compete across two major tournaments for the first time in history, and may be stretched further when their Springboks are rested or withdrawn for World Cup planning camps over the next few months.

At the very least, the Bulls, the Sharks and the Stormers must ensure that they continue to perform in the URC and that they retain their Champions Cup status for the 2023/24 season. Down the line, the player management challenges that are unique to SA rugby may be mitigated if the Boks join the Six Nations, or if the Rugby Championship is moved into a similar international window (February and March). For now, elite SA players will continue to compete year-round.

Ticking the building box

The Boks finished 2022 in fourth place on the World Rugby rankings, behind Ireland, France and New Zealand.

They’re in a stronger position than most, though, having exposed a large group of players – 48 across 13 Tests – with a view to the 2023 World Cup.

Now that the foundations have been laid, the Boks must shift their focus to results. Although they secured their first win in Australia since 2013 and their first victory against England at Twickenham since 2014, they struggled to perform consistently across 2022 and blew a number of golden opportunities.

Had they followed up a 26-10 drubbing of the All Blacks in Mbombela with another win against New Zealand in Johannesburg, they would have claimed the Freedom Cup for the first time since 2009, and would have won the Rugby Championship. And had they prevailed against Wales in the second Test of the series staged in July, they would have finished the season with at least 10 wins from 13 games – instead of a mediocre return of eight from 13.

Some have suggested that the Boks will fly under the radar in 2023, and that all the pressure is on Ireland and France to live up to lofty expectations. That is true up to a point, given that the Boks are ranked fourth in the world.

But regardless of rankings, the Boks will travel to France next September as the world champions. If they bow out after the quarterfinals – which is possible, given that they could face France or New Zealand – the campaign will be marked as a failure.

They have to build momentum in the early stages of the 2023 Test season – just as they did in the lead-up to the 2019 tournament in Japan. Progress was made across various departments in 2022, but in 2023, results must be prioritised.

Aseza Hele of South Africa in action during the Women’s Rugby World Cup Group Stage match between England and South Africa at Waitakere Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand, on 23 October 2022. (Photo: EPA-EFE/Andrew Cornaga)

One small step for women’s rugby

Director of rugby Rassie Erasmus revived the women’s rugby programme in early 2021 and appointed former Irish international Lynne Cantwell as women’s high-performance manager.

From the outset, they outlined the challenge of improving the pathways as well as the goal of exposing more players to international competitions. They put matters into perspective when they said that the team would be in a position to compete against top nations at the 2025 World Cup.

There have already been signs of progress, though. The Bok Women beat Spain and Japan in the lead-up to the 2021 World Cup in New Zealand, which was staged in 2022, owing to the pandemic. Though they failed to win any of their pool matches against France, Fiji and England, a large group of players was exposed to that level of competition for the first time.

That’s not to say that the current system is perfect. A number of elite players competed in the Sevens World Cup staged in September before joining the fifteens side ahead of the global tournament in New Zealand. Shortly after the Sevens World Cup, head coach Paul Delport resigned, and questioned whether SA Rugby was fully invested in women’s sevens. This past week, fifteens coach Stanley Raubenheimer and SA Rugby parted ways.

The women’s programme has made some important gains over the past two years and it’s vital that both codes continue to move forward in 2023.

A new era dawns

The Blitzboks won the first four World Rugby Sevens Series tournaments of the 2021-22 season and extended their winning streak to 36 games. They peaked at the Commonwealth Games, but then crashed out of the Sevens Series title race. At the Sevens World Cup in Cape Town, long-time coach Neil Powell watched in agony as the home side was knocked out by Ireland in the quarterfinals.

With Powell moving to the Sharks, Sandile Ngcobo took the head coach reins ahead of the 2022-23 season. The Blitzboks started slowly in Hong Kong before winning gold in Dubai. They were beaten in the semifinals of the Cape Town tournament by eventual winners Samoa.

The Blitzboks could surpass Samoa at the top of the standings if they win the next leg of the series in Hamilton from 21 to 22 January. A number of talented youngsters – such as Ricardo Duarttee – have made the step up from the sevens academy, and there is good reason to believe that the South Africans will be a force once more. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.