‘I don’t think it will ever get any bigger’ — Rugby World Cup final stakes could not be any higher،
PARIS, France — After seven weeks of trials and tribulations and high hopes of a new Rugby World Cup winner, we have come full circle to the two southern hemisphere powerhouses. The days of French optimism and the sea of Irish green which allowed their teams to qualify for a first final seem distant. Instead, we return to the two must-wins: New Zealand and South Africa, who have won six of the nine World Cups to date.
It’s a fixture enveloped in unmissable nostalgia. There we will find echoes of this famous 1995 final: Jonah Lomu, Joel Stranksy’s drop, Nelson Mandela handing the trophy to François Pienaar. The Rainbow Nation. Back when the game was about to go professional. A bright future.
Yet here we are 28 years later, with football facing many challenges, on and off the field. They have been trying to chart the future of the sport for a week, but questions and uncertainties remain. One of the few constants, however, has been the guarantee that every time the Springboks meet the All Blacks, it sticks.
Both have the rarest ability to ignore the noise and continue on their own path, trusting in the collective processes and knowledge of the past and present to reach the pinnacle of the sport. But in a sport where we are so used to hearing players try to downplay the importance of occasions through their professional gaze, this one is different. The magnitude transcends it.
“It’s huge,” said Springbok captain Siya Kolisi. “We’ve prepared as best we can. We know what to expect. I don’t think as a player it will ever get bigger.”
Kolisi was just four years old when the Springboks won in 1995. When they triumphed in 2007 with John Smit lifting the trophy at the Stade de France, he was 18 and playing for the Cheetahs, but later joined the academy of the Western Province. It was there that he met Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber for the first time. This trio masterminded the Boks’ 2019 triumph and took them to within one game of winning a historic fourth title.
The World Cup journey always aims to make next Monday meaningful. Lose and go home, Monday is just another day. Earn? Monday is the start of preparation for the next match. This has been a driving force behind the All Blacks and the Springboks, but Saturday’s Test is the end point, both for the players at the end of their Test careers, but also for this group of Boks. Nienaber will join Leinster after the World Cup, Erasmus’ contract expires in 2025, while several members of this squad are on the wrong side of 30.
But despite the familiarity of this group – 10 of the 15 starters were in the XV for the final against England in Yokohama four years ago – there is never any complacency. There were the Erasmus World Cup traffic lights, the choice of scrums and of course the 7-1 split.
The Springbok players discovered the team on Monday. For 10 of them, the World Cup was over. That number included Manie Libbok, their first-choice flyhalf throughout the tournament, who was hooked after 30 minutes against England. Libbok on 23, Handre Pollard at the opening, Faf de Klerk at his side.
The team was made public on Thursday. Just five minutes before the Springboks confirmed their squad at 8:45 a.m. in a small village hall 20 kilometers north of Paris, World Rugby announced the decision to drop an investigation into allegations that Tom Curry had been victimized. racist insults from Boks hooker Bongi Mbonambi. semi final. Nienaber said it hasn’t been a distraction for the team. “Where we stay, we’re almost in our own bubble,” Nienaber said. “For us it was business as usual and we focused on rugby and that was taken care of in the background.”
Within that bubble, they had been plotting all week with the 7-1 split as the main decision. They opted for this mix of substitutions against Ireland in the group stage, loading the bench with attackers, trusting their backs to last 80 minutes, all aided by the astonishing versatility of Kwagga Smith.
But even the decision to make this split doesn’t quite represent the story. No dedicated scrum-half replacement has been named, with management opting for Willie le Roux as the only returning specialist among the eight. The message was clear: it will be tiring and decided by the attackers. “World Cup finals are not necessarily the most spectacular events,” Nienaber said. “If you look at past games, it’s always close and this one is going to be close. It’s going to be a chore.”
The Springboks are rightly proud of their “bomb squad”, the group of attackers they deploy to turn the momentum of a match in their favor. It worked spectacularly at the 2019 World Cup, and it did again here, as France and England found out to their cost in the round of 16. But if the Boks have their “bomb squad”, New Zealand has its own group of volunteer replacements: “Easy Company”, inspired by the history of the 101st Airborne Division during the Second World War.
The All Blacks watched the TV series “Band of Brothers” at their hotel in western Paris. We have the feeling that the All Blacks may have gone unnoticed here at the World Cup. They opened their campaign with a total defeat by France. But since then they have been building in the shadows, and as the round of 16 rolled around, they unleashed a wave of emotion and intensity on Ireland to edge the favorites 28-24, then annihilated Argentina in the semi-final 44-6.
All this just about a year after the New Zealand Herald published a front-page editorial on August 7, 2022, headlined: “Ian Foster and the All Blacks: It’s time for change.” It came a day after the All Blacks lost to South Africa 26-10 in Mbombela, their sixth defeat in eight matches equaling their worst series in their history. Six days later, the All Blacks beat the Springboks 35-22 at Ellis Park and Foster retained his position.
The criticism was brutal. This angered former All Blacks like Tana Umaga. The current squad did their best to shield themselves from criticism, but captain Sam Cane paid the price. Changes have been happening behind the scenes, the All Blacks coaching team has evolved with personnel changes and on Thursday Foster was speaking at Paris Country Club after confirming his squad for the final. It’s a fun old sport. He was asked to reflect on his eventful year. “I just started getting my back straight since last year and now you’re trying to bend me again! That’s the life of this business, it’s a tough game,” Foster said. “It’s difficult when you’re trying to get a good performance.”
The All Blacks welcomed former players into camp this week, including two-time World Cup-winning captain Richie McCaw and legendary fly-half Dan Carter. They know what it takes to win sport’s biggest prize, just like Sam Whitelock, who is 80 minutes away from becoming the first player in history to win three World Cups.
Whitelock is named on the All Blacks bench, with Brodie Retallick as starter. It was reported that star flyhalf Richie Mo’unga was nursing an injury, but when the team was released he was there with the number 10 next to his name. They only made one change to the starting lineup and another to the bench. No split 7-1 talk or halfback change, they just tweaked what served them so well.
Saturday will take place several of the last matches of this group under the All Blacks jersey. World Cups and their integration into the sport tend to result in retired players. They are the quadrennial target of those towards the end of their Test careers, looking to pull off one last ruck, maul or tackle through bruised bodies and beaten knees.
While some members of the group go on short-term sabbaticals overseas, for scrum-half Aaron Smith it is his final test with the All Blacks. “We know it’s the last game for a number of iconic players, but it is for both teams,” Foster said. “But the opportunity ahead of us is so exciting and we don’t want to think about the post-match.[Smith] prepared well, he’s excited, he sometimes needs a pat on the head when he gets too excited, but he’s in a good place.”
But there’s no room for sentimentality when it comes to finals. Just ask Dane Coles who is retiring from the sport after this tournament, but was left out of the squad for Saturday’s match. “Yeah, it’s tough. We don’t want to talk too much about post-game stuff, but it was a tough time, probably the toughest I’ve had as a coach,” Foster said. “He took it like I expected. He’s a champion.”
It was another big decision Foster had to make with his fellow selectors, but he will trust in what has served them so well this tournament. Once the dust settles on Saturday’s final, Foster will return to New Zealand. “I can’t wait to get home and mow the lawn,” he said. But before he can get out the lawnmowers, a World Cup is on the line and the number one and second ranked teams in the world are vying for rugby’s biggest prize.
The sport has had some difficult years. The future is still uncertain, it is hardly stable. But on Saturday, for 80 minutes, you’ll face the innovative Boks against the quietly confident All Blacks. Both teams will be motivated by the impact a triumph would have on their country if victorious. “I don’t think it will happen again in our lifetime to have two teams like that,” Kolisi said. “When we win, South Africa wins. It doesn’t say this guy started or that guy scored the winning penalty. When they write the name on the trophy, they say South Africa.”
For the All Blacks, it’s an opportunity to reassert their dominance over the sport. “Make no mistake, we represent New Zealand here,” Retallick said. “We don’t really have the population [size of South Africa] but we have seen the support coming from home and on social media how enthusiastic people are and we have received lots of messages over the last couple of weeks. We are here to represent the country, the jersey and ourselves as individuals and a team. »
Saturday will be the last and hopefully greatest edition of this meeting between these two teams. New Zealand-South Africa is a match that can only pick up the pace. There will be echoes of yesteryear, memories dating back to the great meetings between the two sides, and 1995 will be inevitable. But these two are ready to write the next chapter in this epic rivalry.
“We have two teams that are old, old enemies facing each other, and we all remember the last time they faced each other in the final in 1995,” Foster said. “It was an epic, and everyone hopes it will be the same.”
