No room for complacency as winning Boks look to end seminal rugby season on a high against Wales

If the Springboks beat Wales in their 13th and final Test of a seminal 2024 season, it would mark an eleventh Test victory. It would be the best season, outside of World Cup years, since 1998.

Coach Rassie Erasmus has navigated this year of success while also making it a season of growth. By Saturday evening, 51 players would have represented the Boks in 2024, with looseforward Cameron Hanekom making his Test debut.

To keep winning while evolving and changing on nearly half the starting team every time they play, has been a remarkable feat of management.

Read more: Strategic Boks show misfiring and in crisis England and Wales what they’re missing

Consistency in performance usually comes with consistency in selection. The Boks have flipped that script, and while their performances have not always been exceptional in 2024, they have managed to get results.

And in the longer term, the benefits of the growth of depth and style the squad have undergone this year, will only be felt in the future. 

Despite all the evolution though, the success of the year depends on the Boks beating Wales. They have to finish the job against a team with its backs firmly against the wall. 

No sure thing 

There is never a sure thing in professional sport because it involves humans — usually very skilled humans — but people nonetheless. And humans have emotions and temperament, and injuries and niggles, and doubts and fears.

Yet, the Springboks beating Wales at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday is as close to a sure thing as there is rugby at the moment.

Read more: Rassie primes Boks for crucial Wales battle after burying hatchet with beleaguered Gatland 

Some might say this is an arrogant assumption, but other than the most blinkered and patriotic Welsh fan, driven by heart and emotion and not their heads, no one is going to bet on Wales winning. 

Wales have lost 11 Tests in a row. They are in freefall. They don’t have a discernible style of play and lack players of great quality and experience in many positions. They are callow and shorn of confidence.

Facing them are the world champions — the No 1 team on the planet. The Boks have two world-class players in every position, and in some they have three. They have won 10 of 12 Tests this year, collected every piece of silverware available to them, and are riding a tsunami of momentum and confidence. 

There is just no way Wales can win. Is there? 

Well, of course there is. This is elite sport, where desperation coming against a tide of complacency can lead to a strange outcome.

Which is why, the Boks, for all their success this year, face their biggest challenge. In just about every Test this season, barring Portugal, winning has not been a foregone conclusion.

Given the situation between Wales and the Boks in 2024, winning in Cardiff should be a matter of course for the world champions. And if the Boks play anywhere close to their potential, then victory will be assured. 

But, and this is a big “but”, they cannot for a moment be complacent. They can’t arrive and expect that Wales will wilt and roll over. 

“I think we can expect desperation from them,” lock Jean Kleyn said this week. Kleyn was named to start but was withdrawn on Friday afternoon with an injury. Eben Etzebeth was promoted from the bench with flank Marco van Staden called up as a replacement.

“A dog in the corner is always dangerous, so we’re definitely preparing for a big fight, especially in the first 20 minutes. 

“They are going to come out with a lot of emotion, so it’s going to be tough, but we have plans in place to deal with their threats, and we’ve been working on areas that could make us a little more threatening. 

“They’re a team with a lot of youngsters who want to prove a point, and particularly since it’s the last game of the season and they are now 11 down, so they’d definitely love to finish the season by beating world champions.”

Nothing to lose 

Can you imagine Warren Gatland’s team talk this week? All he needs to do is pin up various headlines and bookmaker odds on the team room walls, to motivate the players. 

Wales have nothing to lose in this contest. It might even be Gatland’s last game in charge. What better way to go out, if it is to be his swansong of a long and successful association with Welsh rugby, than with a win over the Boks? 

It’s also a Bok team with a tight five that looks slightly makeshift after loosehead prop Ox Nche was withdrawn. Thomas du Toit will start at loosehead, Wilco Louw comes in at tightead with Johan Grobbelaar at hooker. 

Good players all, but they have not started together before. In the second row Kleyn makes his first Test appearance of the year – the 51st player coach Rassie Erasmus has used in 2024 – alongside Franco Mostert. 

A year ago that lock pairing would be the envy of the world. Right now, Kleyn is still not back to his best after injury problems earlier in the year. Mostert is only set for his second game in five months, following a broken leg. 

They are combining with a new hooker and with different lifters in the lineout in Louw and Du Toit. There are a lot of moving parts that might not gel immediately.

Wales will almost certainly be targeting the lineout as one area where they can perhaps gain a small foothold in the game. They have to believe the Boks have some weaknesses and the Bok tight five, ironically, might offer that sliver of hope.

“In a weird way, there’s not a better team to come to town this week for Wales, because the best side in the world are coming to town,” former Wales centre Jamie Roberts said in an interview with Supersport’s