It’s time to give serial winners South Africa the credit they deserve

It remains to be seen which of South Africa and Ireland will finish this calendar year as the world’s officially top-ranked team.

NO ORDINARY SQUAD: Siya Kolisi of South Africa lifts the Rugby Championship trophy after defeating Argentina. Pic: Dirk Kotze/Gallo Images/Getty Images

South Africa: an apology. It has come to this column’s attention that, in recent years, some sections of the global rugby union community have not always given the Springboks sufficient credit. Instead of Rassie Erasmus being portrayed as a spiritual leader and latter-day saint there has been undue focus on his odd home videos and comments about match officials. Photos of Eben Etzebeth looking comically scary have not been matched by an equal number of articles proclaiming him to be tougher than Alun Wyn Jones, Martin Johnson and Colin Meads combined. And if Ireland, say, had won two consecutive World Cup titles, the subsequent media coverage might have been a touch more reverential. The media acknowledge these oversights and hereby commit to using the words “lekka” and “howzit” at the start of every piece in future.

Well, you get the idea. Portraying South Africa as the pantomime baddies of the Test game was, for a lengthy period, all too tempting. The Boks were not necessarily renowned for their “beautiful” rugby, the last British & Irish Lions series in 2021 drained almost everybody’s spirits and there are only so many gleeful Bomb Squad references that the rest of the world can stomach.