After six years under coaches Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber and captain Siya Kolisi, the Springbok plan faces its toughest examination. The Boks couldn’t – and understand­ably wouldn’t – talk about the possibility of Sunday night’s blockbuster in Saint-Denis against hosts France as being the end of an era. But it might be.

The project to win Rugby World Cup 2023 started when Erasmus and Nienaber returned to South Africa from a stint at Munster, in early 2018. And now they are face to face with destiny as they meet the hosts in the quarterfinal.

They laid out a blueprint to win RWC 2023 in early 2018 and set about planning and working towards that goal.

They hoped, but didn’t expect, to turn the Boks around from record defeats and their lowest world ranking to world champions in 2019. But they did. They didn’t expect to encounter a global pandemic, which robbed them of a year of planned development, but they did. And they coped and adapted.

And so they arrived in 2023 – to a world emerging from all sorts of Covid disruptions – as reigning world champions with new and different pressures. They come into this season for the first time in nearly five years with no clear objective beyond 28 October 2023 – the day of the Rugby World Cup final.

They are close now. And also, so far. Les Bleus are a formidable hurdle, desperate to win the World Cup on home soil. There will be no margin for error. The Boks simply have to be at their best and most ruthless.

Springbok flyhalf Manie Libbok. (Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images)

Are they illegal?

France have spent the week questioning the Boks’ physicality, suggesting they are illegal. Boks skipper Siya Kolisi wasn’t having it.

“We do play physically, we do play on the edge, but we train it over and over again to stay legal,” Kolisi said. “We train to tackle below the ball and in training penalties are called for offside and all those kinds of things.

“Our training is like a match day and if you cause those penalties in training, then you obviously bring in the ref. Our goal is to not bring the ref into it.

“That’s why our technique is so important. But at the same time, you can’t go out there in fear. We can’t go out there in fear of doing something crazy. You have to live on the edge because that’s what our game is about. That’s who we are as the Springbok team. We play as hard as we can for 80 minutes. That’s rugby.

“People enjoy rugby because it’s brutal and creates opportunities for players with great footwork to show the beautiful side of rugby.

“Our forward pack is what we use to get go-forward ball. It has to be as brutal as it can so that our wings and our backs can do their thing. But I think the ref will be able to manage the game and obviously, if we stay clear of anything naughty, we’ll be alright,” Kolisi said.

Negativity not an option

The stakes are at their highest at Rugby World Cup 2023 now. There is no “next week” for the loser. The Boks’ defence of the world title they won so gloriously in Yokohama four years ago could last another week or two. Or it might end in tears at Stade de France sometime around 11pm.

There is no shying away from the possibility, however much it hurts. But the fans spend more time fretting over it than the team, in the moment, focused on one job only. For the team, negative thoughts are not an option. There is only the focus on beating France and the processes it takes to get the job done.

The Boks have an impenetrable belief that if they play their best, if they execute like they know they can, they will win. That is not arrogance, but confidence. They have had to narrow their focus to small details to shut out the noise and the doubts. In their bubble, there is no room for incertitude.

And always at the back of their minds is the thought of SA – of a country with so many problems – and their role in lightening the burden for average citizens for a day, a week, a month.

“All we have as a team is gratitude,” Kolisi said before facing France.

“We are honestly blessed to come from a country who believes in this team so much. People use their savings – they would do everything they can to get [to France] today.

“And we’re thankful to those that are erecting screens for people to view the game in the townships and in malls across the country.

“Our team represents the whole of SA and from all different walks of life. That’s where we get our edge from.

“Of course, we love the game and we [play for] personal reasons and goals. But the main thing that brings us together is SA and South Africans. That’s who we want to make proud …

“And the only way we can do that is not with these words, with what I’m saying right now, but with the effort that we put in on the field. It’s what [coach] Jacques asks me to do on the field. He asks not to give up, not to look like I’m not giving 100%. I must always give everything, because so many people would give everything to be where we are today.

“And that’s what drives us. That’s what keeps us going, because some people play just to win a World Cup or play for different reasons. We do what we love and it has an influence on so many people in the world, so we can never take that for granted.

“That’s why we put in the hard work and when we play on Sunday our thoughts will be with them. I know there will only be a few South Africans [in Stade de France] … shouting for us and we are honestly grateful.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.