Trophies, consistency and a nod to the future — why the Springboks of 2025 are a class apart

Since the dawn of the professional era in 1996, the Springboks have been criticised for their mediocre performances in the years between World Cups.

While they’ve won four World Cup titles and two British & Irish Lions series victories in those 30 years, their overall win-record has – for the most part – left a lot to be desired.

Over the past three seasons, however, die-hard critics have struggled to substantiate the argument that the South Africans are little more than big tournament bullies.

While the 2023 season will be remembered for South Africa’s World Cup triumph in France, the team finished the year with an 85% win record – surpassing the 1998 and 2013 sides (both 83%) for the most consistent performance across a calendar year.

In 2024, Rassie Erasmus’s charges won 11 of their 13 Tests to maintain that 85% win record as well as their grip on World Rugby’s No 1 ranking.

Fast forward to the present, where they’ve racked up 11 wins in 13 Tests – and have made history by successfully defending the Rugby Championship and Freedom Cup titles for the first time.

If they beat a depleted Wales this Saturday, they will finish the five-game tour to Europe with a perfect record and the 2025 Test season with an unprecedented 86% success rate.

While the stats and facts show why this is the most successful Bok team of all time, there are other reasons that 2025 will go down in history as a season to remember.

And as much as they’ve achieved, they are yet to reach the ceiling of their potential.

Navigating the transition period

At the start of the year, a reasonable question was how Erasmus might address the imbalance between the older and younger players in the squad?

In a sense, the development of younger players with the potential to feature at the 2027 World Cup began in 2024, when Erasmus gave Edwill van der Merwe, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Morné van den Berg, Ben-Jason Dixon, Johan Grobbelaar and Jan-Hendrik Wessels their Test debuts, while backing fringe players such as Wilco Louw, Thomas du Toit, Ruan Nortje and Aphelele Fassi more regularly.

The Bok coach cast the net even wider in early 2025, inviting more than 80 players to various alignment camps to prepare for the coming season.

Thirteen Tests as well as a non-cap international against the Barbarians later, and 50 players have been used, including eight debutants.

It’s not just who Erasmus has introduced this season, but where and how.

Five front-rankers made their international debuts (Boan Venter, Marnus van der Merwe, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, Neethling Fouché and Zachary Porthen), two versatile back-five forwards (Vincent Tshituka and Cobus Wiese) and one utility back (Ethan Hooker).

At a glance, it’s plain to see how Erasmus has looked to inject new blood across the various positional departments.

What’s more, he has backed several of the newcomers in some of the Boks’ biggest and most important games of the season.

Venter played from the bench for much of the Rugby Championship, before starting in the monumental wins against France and Ireland this month. Hooker was unleashed on the wing against the All Blacks, in what turned out to be a record-breaking 43-10 win in Wellington.

At the same time, Erasmus has given the newcomers from 2024 more responsibility in recent months. Feinberg-Mngomezulu has started at No 10 in eight of the 13 Tests to date (and in six of the past seven).

Louw, Thomas du Toit and Nortje – who were part of the wider squad before 2024 – have become regular members of the match 23 this year, with Du Toit and Nortje starting seven and eight Tests respectively, and Louw playing a key role for the Bomb Squad in South Africa’s brutally effective second-half strategy.

It’s been hailed as the beginning of the end for the old guard in some sectors, and the start of a more prosperous era in others.

Both claims miss the point, though, as Erasmus has favoured a balance between youth and experience throughout the season – with the pairing of Feinberg-Mngomezulu alongside the 35-year-old scrumhalf Cobus Reinach serving as the best example of a balanced combination.

The team that travels to Australia in 2027 should be younger on average, but don’t be surprised if Erasmus retains a significant group of veterans who have seen it all before and have the ability to amplify younger teammates.

Winning while developing

Through his innovative squad policy and management methods, Erasmus has managed to rotate his team regularly while maintaining the push for results.

The scrum – or more specifically the front row that powers this set piece – is but one example.

The Boks have dominated most opponents in this area over the past 12 months, and earned a monumental 24-13 win against Ireland last week on the back of a savage scrummaging display.

It’s interesting to note that the Boks produced their most emphatic set-piece performance of the season without front-row regulars such as Ox Nché, Frans Malherbe, Vincent Koch, Trevor Nyakane and Wessels – who are all unavailable due to injuries or suspension.

Erasmus has used 18 different front-row combinations over the course of the 2025 season, but the rotation policy certainly hasn’t diluted the team’s potency. The same applies to other departments, where different players and combinations haven’t compromised the quest for results.

Erasmus has experimented with several interesting tactical ploys – who could forget the midfield lineout maul that caused such a stir in the second Test against Italy this past July – and has pushed forward with the move to reinvent André Esterhuizen as a hybrid player who can slot in at centre or flank according to the situation.

The Bok boss has mixed up his bench formations, favouring a five-three split for the majority of the Rugby Championship and reverting to a six-two for much of the present tour to Europe.

Overall, Erasmus, attack coach Tony Brown and others in that crack management team have encouraged the Boks to marry a bold new approach with their traditional set-piece and kicking strengths.

The results serve to show why they are on the right track – and in a broader context, why they are better than other Bok teams that have come before.

Ticking the biggest boxes

When Erasmus called the media together in February to discuss his alignment squad, he intimated that the one-off against bogey side Ireland on 22 November would be as important as the fixtures against the All Blacks in Auckland and Wellington during the Rugby Championship.

While the coach was reluctant to say so outright, those of us who were present got the feeling that a more ambitious Bok team intended to measure themselves by their results against New Zealand, France – who went on to win the Six Nations – and Ireland.

To say that much has transpired over the past 10 months would be an understatement.

The Boks lost 38-22 in the Rugby Championship opener and recorded their first defeat to the Wallabies in Johannesburg in six decades.

Several weeks later, they blew a golden opportunity – perhaps the best chance they will ever have – to end a long losing streak at Eden Park, which stretches back to 1937.

Yet, given what we’ve seen since then, it’s easier to forgive the Boks for their failings in Johannesburg and Auckland, and to view their overall progress in a new light.

The record-breaking win in Wellington allowed the Boks to retain the Freedom Cup title, and went a long way towards securing the Rugby Championship trophy for another season.

The manner of victory, of course, was the big talking point – and proved to be a sign of things to come.

The Boks smashed Argentina 67-30 in Durban, before edging the same side 29-27 in London the following week.

The 61-7 win against Japan at Wembley Stadium earlier this month allowed a few players to shake off the rust. While they didn’t have everything their way in subsequent clashes, they still managed to beat France and Italy by 15 and 18 points respectively with 14 men on the field for the majority of both matches.

Should they have beaten Ireland by 20 points or more in Dublin last week?

They certainly had the set-piece and territorial dominance to do so, and at one stage, enjoyed a three-man advantage over an ill-disciplined Irish side.

On the other hand, they went into the clash knowing that a one-point victory would signify a monumental success, given their 13-year drought in the Irish capital.

As it was, they beat Ireland by 11 points – and that margin is significant in the context of the past four meetings between the two nations, which were decided by one score.

There’s been a question around the next game in Cardiff and whether it should go ahead, given that both teams will be without so many of their star players, due to the fact that the Test will be staged outside the international window.

Erasmus, of course, will view it as an opportunity to experiment with new combinations, and that mindset won’t necessarily compromise the group’s desperation for another positive result.

The Boks are within touching distance of a five-from-five record on tour as well as an 86% success rate for the season.

Victory in Cardiff will cap another ground-breaking year for Erasmus’s charges, and set them up for another strong showing in 2026 and beyond.

While their place in the pantheon is assured, the opportunity to add their legacy as the most consistent Bok team in history is there for the taking. DM