The bite don't match the bark

Look, we get it. It’s a passionate nation that loves rugby. We love that. But what becomes increasingly apparent with South African rugby, at all levels, is that the bite doesn’t match the bark.

South African rugby is sold by all of its patriotic supporters as the greatest thing since slice bread. The hyperbole is extreme and pride drips with every comment posted on social media.

Let’s start with schoolboy rugby and go from there. We don’t need to even get into the women’s or sevens, because South Africa hasn’t delivered anything in those.

We hear how tough South African schoolboy rugby is and we keep getting told how nothing compares.

Yet when it comes to global schoolboy titles, New Zealand leads the way with nine Sanix titles, the Japan-based tournament that has been running since the year 2000, and two World Schools titles, the new tournament launched in 2018.

Hamilton Boys holds four world championships, the most of any individual school. Yet, if we are lead to believe, South Africa has the best schoolboy teams.

But apparently once they get to U20 level, they can’t keep up with their global rivals.

South Africa have hosted the last two World U20 Championships but were grouped in this year’s event, beaten handsomely by Argentina and then beat on the buzzer by England. They were beaten again by Argentina and will now play for seventh place. Last year they made the semi-finals but lost to Ireland 31-12.

The South African U20 side has won the tournament just once, in 2012, now 12 years ago. They’ve been perennial semi-finalists, finishing third on nine occasions.

Somehow the best schoolboy talent in the world consistently falls short in the two years after they graduate high school.

Once they make it professionally, it is a similar story. At domestic level in Super Rugby the South African teams pulled in three championships in 24 years of competing.

The great Bulls side won in 2007 and then back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. But even the Australians managed more championships, with four between the Brumbies, Reds and Waratahs.

New Zealand teams dominated the competition taking every other title, the Crusaders the pick of the bunch.

Since leaving for greener pastures in the United Rugby Championship, the South African teams have hosted the final three times in three years, with just the Stormers winning one title.

In a bid to go back-to-back, the Stormers fell to Munster at home in 2023 and this year the Bulls lost to Glasgow Warriors in a mammoth upset.

But the fact remains, just like the U20 side, South African teams have just one title in the last 14 years of club competitions.

The Sharks took home the Challenge Cup this season but that doesn’t count, it’s Europe’s division two competition and effectively a mickey mouse plate competition.

Europe’s elite play in the Champions Cup, the likes of Toulouse, Leinster, La Rochelle. South Africa’s best have been granted entry but haven’t come within a stone’s throw of winning.

Now we get to the Springboks. The four-time Rugby World Cup winners.

We’ll start with the results outside of World Cups.

There have been some great teams, the 2009 Springbok side is the best of the modern era.

But those have been few and far between as they have captured just four SANZAAR titles in 27 years of competition in the Tri Nations since 1996 and the Rugby Championship since 2012.

They hold more wooden spoons than any of their rivals, with Argentina closing in quickly.

The Springboks have generally held dominance over the Northern Hemisphere teams but that is slipping away, as it is for New Zealand and Australia as well.

The four World Cup wins can be broken down in isolation and become far less impressive on inspection.

The 2007 side won the title without beating a top four opponent. The 2019 side beat Italy, Japan, Wales and England, basically half a Six Nations campaign.

And the 2023 side got the gift of all gifts, the ultimate charity in the form of an opposition red card in the first half. And yet they just scraped by one point.

Since claiming back-to-back World Cups, despite winning no Rugby Championships in between and running at a mid-60 per cent win rate, we’ve had to listen about how the Springboks have global supremacy.

And here they finally are, against Ireland at home, the back-to-back Six Nations winners who have put the runs on the board despite failing again at the quarter-final stage of the World Cup.

Ireland have a home winning streak of 19 in a row, numbers South Africa could only dream of. They put 17 Test wins in a row together, just one short of the record.

And they were sent to South Africa for Two Tests to find out who the real deal is.

The Springboks edged game one 27-20 on the back of two huge plays by James Lowe. He was potentially in touch when he assisted for the wrong team, handing Kolbe a try, and his blazing solo was called back on an obscure ruling.

The first Test was decided by small margins could have been 27-20 to Ireland. The second Test was again a close affair, with an incredible Ciaran Frawley drop goal snatching a 25-24 win at the death.

So they couldn’t be separated, sharing the series 1-1.

By beating South Africa on home soil and levelling the series, Ireland have now claimed three of the last four in the recent years since 2022. Going back to 2016 when they last met was in a different era. But that’s now a 75 per cent win rate for Andy Farrell over a team that supposedly has ‘global supremacy’.

If you give it out, you have to take it. Fair’s fair. Because quite simply, the bite don’t match the bark with South African rugby.

If South African rugby wants to be the King of global rugby, then production at all levels over the long-term is required.

And that means beating the Irish when they are put right in front you at home. It means winning more U20 titles. It means winning more club titles.

It’s time to dial down the barking or increase the bite. The former is the right thing to do until the latter happens.