Durban - “It is not how you start but how you finish” is a hackneyed refrain, but boy does it aptly apply to the 2022 season for the Springboks.
It indeed seems an eternity ago that the Boks wobbled to a 32-29 win over Wales on 2 July, with makeshift flyhalf Damian Willemse – in the position because Elton Jantjies had played so poorly in the first half – kicking a last-minute penalty to snatch a win at Loftus.
The Boks then lost to Wales for the first time on home soil when they fielded an experimental team in Bloemfontein, and coach Jacques Nienaber was under the blowtorch for the “crime” of fielding anything but his best possible team.
In exasperation, Nienaber said, “judge us on the World Cup” and that is a fair comment because if the Boks do defend their title, nobody will give a damn anymore about what happened in Bloemfontein.
And if you look at that side that lost 13-12 after a last-minute penalty by Gareth Anscombe, there was some invigorating new blood, including a certain debutant in Kurt-lee Arendse.
Arendse was one of the selections questioned, but he would go on to score seven tries in seven Tests, and the imperious manner in which he scored at Twickenham summed up the confidence and authority with which the Boks signed off their season.
Indeed, this pre-world Cup year was always going to be about growth, and of all the genuine contenders for France 2023, the Boks have the steepest upward curve going into the new year.
Since South Africa won the Webb Ellis Cup in 2019, the overseas critics of the “boring Boks” – and they have been plentiful – have failed to consider that the South Africans lost 18 months of rugby to the Covid-19 lockdown.
The Boks suffered way more inactivity because of the pandemic than their chief rivals and their first match since beating England in the World Cup final was against Georgia in July 2021.
That means they lost a vital year and a half in which to evolve their
game and thus 2022 was the year in which Nienaber and director of rugby Rassie Erasmus had to add a few more arrows to the Bok quiver.
And the last two matches of the year provided spectacular evidence that this has been achieved.
The manner in which a plucky Italy was dispatched in the second half in Genoa, and hapless England in London, sounded a warning to the rugby world that the Boks have added a lethal back three to their arsenal.
Erasmus will argue that it was always there if you consider the tries scored by Makazole Mapimpi and Cheslin Kolbe in the 2019 final, and to a degree, he has a point, but there is another dimension to the finishing now, a greater willingness to launch counter-attacks from deep.
Willemse’s thirst for adventure has much to do with it and let’s not forget that in July he was the Boks’ fourthchoice flyhalf, and he finished the year in pole position.
Crucial, too, to the exhilarating tries the Boks have been scoring is the playmaker role of Willie le Roux, who has chosen the perfect time to hit the best form of his career.
Counter-attacking is mostly about mindset and with Willemse and Le Roux in glorious cahoots, the Boks are at last unlocking their potential to score swashbuckling tries.
It must also not be forgotten that the Boks played the second half of their season without arguably their best backline player, Lukhanyo Am, who was injured against Australia in Adelaide. He had been in fine form and was a finalist for the World Rugby Player of the Year award.
When Am slots back in at No 13, he will further enhance the attacking threat of Arendse, Kolbe, Mapimpi et al.
Winning a world cup is all about timing your run to perfection. The All Blacks are past masters at getting it wonderfully wrong. They have made peaking between world cups and flopping at the event itself an art form.
SA got it right in 2019 when they arrived in Japan with an ideal blend of momentum, hunger and growing confidence after a solid 2018 season.
They are probably in a similar position now, along with the All Blacks, who for a change have had a decidedly iffy year.
Favourites Ireland and France remind me of the horses leading the July handicap at Greyville at the final corner, but there are questions as to whether they have the legs to go all the way.
The horse with the green and gold livery looks to me like that horse that emerges from the middle of the pack at that last corner to catch the eye of the excited commentator who sees a promising gap opening for an ear-spinned-back gallop to the finish line ...
@MikeGreenaway67