The Springboks now turn their attention to the All Blacks for their next two fixtures in the 2024 Rugby Championship, and they are confident before the two home Tests against their great rivals.
The back-to-back World Champions are en route back to South Africa following their 30-12 win in a wet Perth for a double over the Wallabies in Australia. A week prior the Springboks beat the Wallabies 33-7 for what was their first win in Brisbane since 2013.
The Boks lead the log after the first two rounds with a maximum of two points, while the All Blacks returned to winning ways with a convincing 42-10 win against the Pumas in Auckland.
The Springbok winger, Cheslin Kolbe, warned that they haven’t won the Rugby Championship yet.
“Coach Rassie Erasmus said it, we haven’t done it for years yet and we’re definitely in a good position but we won’t just leave it at that and get complacent because we know the next two games are going to be massive,” said the two-time Rugby World Cup winner.
“All Blacks versus South Africa are always big rivalry matches and for us it’s just to make sure that we control the things we can control and continue to work hard throughout the week with training and hopefully we’ll just continue to play off on the weekends.
“All the guys got opportunities to put up their hand to show that they want to be there and they want to stay there. We have a lot of excitement from a squad point of view and from the management for just believing in us as players as well and giving us those opportunities to be ourselves out on the field and as a team.”
The first of two Tests between the Springboks and All Blacks will be played on Saturday 31 August 2024 at Ellis Park in Johannesburg. This Test will kick-off at 17:00.
Morgan Piek
