The key to the Springboks' World Cup defence

South Africa’s potential lies in its diversity – and though corrupt politicians and bigoted citizens have yet to harness this energy, the Springboks certainly have.

Their World Cup win in 1995 helped tear down social and cultural barricades – even if temporarily – and is still regarded as an important cornerstone of Nelson Mandela’s nation building project. Since then a multi-ethnic side has claimed two more World Cups, setting an example and inspiring the rest of the country.

But diversity does not just relate to the squad’s melanin count or the languages they speak. Of all the teams with a realistic chance of lifting the Webb Ellis Cup in France later this year, the Springboks are unquestionably the most assorted bunch by a distance.

From the recent 41-man training group that gathered for some pre-Rugby Championship fine-tuning, as many as 19 different clubs from five different countries and four different leagues are represented. There are locks who play in Ireland. A scrum half who plays in Japan. A centre based in England and a prop who earns a living in France.

Up and down the team, in every combination on the pitch, players who spend most of their rugby playing days in disparate lands must come together and find something resembling cohesion. Andy Farrell’s Ireland don’t have to worry about that. They’re effectively a Leinster side with a few players from the other provinces thrown in the mix. And though the England, New Zealand and France squads are more diverse in terms of the number of club sides present, they’re all familiar with each other given they play in the same league.

Traditionally, World Cups have been won by relatively homogeneous groups. The victorious All Blacks in 1987 had representatives from six clubs but that shrunk down to four and five in 2011 and 2015 respectively once the franchise system was introduced.

Australia’s two wins in 1991 and 1999 as well as South Africa’s successes in 1995 and 2007 were procured by squads made up of entirely home-based talent. England’s triumph in 2003 stands out for having a solitary foreign-based player in Dan Luger, the winger who had only just made the move from Harlequins to Perpignan before the World Cup kicked off in October that year. But this was an exception that otherwise underlined a clear trend.

It wasn’t until 2019, when Siya Kolisi’s team steamrolled England in Yokohama, that things really took a turn. Four years ago, the Springboks went to Japan with players under the banner of 12 clubs from four countries – South Africa, Japan, France and England. Conventional wisdom suggested they should have struggled for synchronicity.

But the Springboks possess a secret weapon that is inaccessible to most other teams. It doesn’t guarantee victory, but it serves as a binding agent that can help maintain a strong foundation to build upon.

Let’s call it Mzansi Magic, using the informal name for South Africa derived from the isiXhosa word for ‘south’. Dismiss it if you like. As Matthew MccConaughey’s character in Wolf of Wall Street might have said, “It’s a whazy. It’s a woozie. It’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist. It’s never landed. It is no matter. It’s not on the elemental chart. It’s not f****** real.”

But the players believe in this magic. So do the coaches and backroom staff and journalists and broadcasters and fans back home. It is this mythological narrative that tethers the Springboks to something higher than themselves, to something more important than the events on a rugby field, that explains how a team seemingly made up of global mercenaries can come together and play with tangible unity.

At least that’s the marketing strapline. However, fairy dust doesn’t win titles and the Springboks’ diversity provides them with a more concrete advantage over the competition. No matter what challenge is presented to them at the World Cup, whatever shapes the opposition produce or shifts to their in-game tactics that they tweak, there’s a good chance that someone wearing green and gold would have seen something like it before.

Gone are the days of stumbling into matches at the elite level without hours upon hours of video analysis of the opposition. But there can be no substitute for the live experience and thanks to the range of ideas and cultures that the collective squad has been exposed to, Jacques Ninaber’s team will at least have some muscle memory when they encounter an Irish wraparound move that reminds them of a Leinster attack, or a French counter that looks similar to one unleashed by Toulouse, or a driving maul pulled from Leicester’s playbook.

The range of intellectual property at their disposal can only be a positive. As anyone who has ever travelled beyond their nation’s borders will know, rubbing shoulders and breaking bread with people who possess a wholly different world view invariably widens your own. It is impossible not to be influenced by alien philosophies once exposed to them. Even if that simply reinforces your own way of doing things, this external force at least shifts the paradigm.

In the past, the Springboks have been dismissed as being one dimensional. They had been a team that stuck with Plan A until all the fuel was burned. At times the divisions between the provinces seemed to have a destabilising effect on the squad. Players from previous generations speak of cliques that formed along these lines.

Now there are 10 Sharks, nine Stormers and three Bulls in the squad. But there are 19 players from clubs from Japan, Ireland, France and England. There isn’t a pairing on the field that won’t feel like a multinational amalgamation, one that marries contrasting strategies and will recognise just about every scenario that could materialise.

Throw all of that under the calcifying force that is the Springboks mantra that carries forth the notion that sport has the power to change the world and you’ve got a potent force primed to defend their crown.

Ireland and France are the leading teams in the world, and the All Blacks remain the pace setters of southern hemisphere rugby, but they’ve never had South Africa’s sense of mission. They now also look monochromatic by comparison.

World Cup winners:

* Australia’s win in 1991 was secured with 26 players that either represented Queensland or New South Wales at the provincial level, but could have been divided according to their local club side. For example, captain Nick Farr-Jones played for Sydney University. Using this metric, we could say that 12 clubs were present in the squad.