Many teams that have gone to World Cups as defending champions often have a target on their backs, as opposition want to dismantle them and take the title from them. That, along with the tag of favourites by default, has seen many disastrous title defences. 

The Springboks will go into this year’s Rugby World Cup in France as the defending champions after their triumph in Japan in 2019.

The position the Boks find themselves in is rather interesting and it is one they love: many in the rugby fraternity do not see them as the team to beat to win the Webb Ellis cup. 

“The nice thing about this group is that it’s been together for a really long time and we are very realistic and we don’t often get thrown into what people are saying or thinking,” Rassie Erasmus, the SA director of rugby, told the media yesterday during a briefing at the team’s hotel in Pretoria. 

“We know in 2019 we were probably the underdogs, now we are world champions, we have to try and defend that and we feel we have as good a chance but we are under no illusions. 

“Australia under Eddie, New Zealand, Ireland are number one, France are number two. If you go right through to Scotland who are number five currently, it would be stupid to think we have got that favourites tag or not, we are not going to argue on that because there’s no sense in doing that,” he said. 

Boks captain Siya Kolisi shared the same sentiments as Erasmus, saying that their approach in France will be different to the one they had in Japan.

“We know the last time no one expected us to win, we were number five in the world. Now, we are the holders, and we know the hard work we have to do because a lot of nations can win this World Cup, which is a good thing for rugby,” Kolisi said.

“That’s why I think Rassie and coach Jacques [Nienaber] have done a lot of research because since 2019, rugby has changed a lot and we have had to adapt our style and learn a lot of things. So we know we can’t approach it the way we did the last time, a lot of things will change.”