Rassie Erasmus' highly motivated Springboks should have too much firepower for the Wallabies

Unlikely mountaineer Ox Nche used a climbing analogy to aptly describe the importance of Saturday’s Rugby Championship opener for the Springboks against the Wallabies at Ellis Park.

The rotund loosehead prop asked the press: “How do you climb a mountain?” There was no answer from the assembled hacks.

“You don’t look at the summit, you look at the first step in front of you, and you make sure you make strong, solid strides,” Nche explained.

In other words, the Boks are desperate to start the Rugby Championship with a statement win over the Aussies, and back it up next week in Cape Town. That would ensure they confidently travel to Auckland for the cliffhanger Test against the All Blacks, and the sequel the following week in Wellington,

The excitement in New Zealand is building. Reports from the Land of the Long White Cloud are that the min-series is being seen as a mini-World Cup, but for the teams to live up to that hype, the Boks must first subdue the plucky Australians, and the Kiwis must overcome the unpredictable Pumas in Argentina.

You would think that a correctly-focused Springbok team, playing at their spiritual home, would have too much firepower for a Wallabies team that, while battle-hardened after the series against the British and Irish Lions, is only a year into its journey as a new team, while the Boks are miles down the road.

They have been building under Rassie Erasmus since 2018. Funnily enough, it was at Ellis Park that the Boks kicked off under Erasmus. They played Eddie Jones’ England and at one stage were 20 points behind before rallying and sealing a heroic win in the end.

The bottom line is that Ellis Park is a difficult place for visiting teams to win matches. The Wallabies did it in 1963, but never again. The Australians fare badly on the Highveld, full stop. The last time they won in the rarified atmosphere of the South African hinterland was in Bloemfontein in 2010, when a last-minute Kurtley Beale penalty stole the spoils.

Erasmus’s Boks have taken a contrasting road to Saturday’s game compared to their opponents. While the Wallabies were on a super highway, fighting for their lives in a hugely hyped series with the Lions, the Boks were on a country road, warming up against bumpkins in the Barbarians, Italy, and Georgia.

As Erasmus said, “Are the Wallabies battle-hardened or punch drunk?” We will see on Saturday.

“For us, we had a three-week training camp in which we trained probably at a higher intensity than a match, while in the four-match incoming series, we were tested physically but not tactically.

“But playing the teams we did allowed us to grow some nice depth ahead of the Rugby Championship.

“We have never won the Championship or the Tri-Nations (as it was called in the past) back-to-back. We have never done it, going back to the start in 1996. That is how difficult this tournament is,” Erasmus said.

“We have also never in history beaten Australia five times in a row, and they have never won at Ellis Park in the modern era.”

The Wallabies have lost ten of 11 matches played at the Boks’ Johannesburg fortress, and only the most passionate Aussie will predict the drought ending on Saturday.

Teams

South Africa — 15 Aphelele Fassi, 14 Edwill van der Merwe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 André Esterhuizen, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Grant Williams, 8 Siya Kolisi (c), 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nche

Bench: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 18 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Cobus Reinach, 22 Canan Moodie, 23 Damian Willemse

Australia — 15 Tom Wright, 14 Max Jorgensen, 13 Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, 12 Len Ikitau, 11 Dylan Pietsch, 10 James O’Connor, 9 Nic White, 8 Harry Wilson (c), 7 Fraser McReight, 6 Tom Hooper, 5 Will Skelton, 4 Nick Frost, 3 Taniela Tupou, 2 Billy Pollard, 1 James Slipper.

Bench: 16 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 17 Angus Bell, 18 Zane Nonggorr, 19 Jeremy Williams, 20 Langi Gleeson, 21 Nick Champion de Crespigny, 22 Tate McDermott, 23 Andrew Kellaway.