Wallaby stew on the menu? Springboks have best chance to end Aussie drought

The Wallabies are now more than ever ripe for the picking in Australia and the Springboks have to take advantage.

It is the Boks’ best opportunity in recent memory to break their losing run in the country when they take on the hosts in two Rugby Championship Tests on 27 August in Adelaide and on 3 September in Sydney.

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The last time the Boks beat the Wallabies in Australia was in 2013, when they picked up a thumping 38-12 win at the SunCorp Stadium in Brisbane, having gone on to lose six and draw one of their next seven games in the country.

This is not the first time that the Boks head to Australia as favourites during their recent drought, with Heyneke Meyer’s sides in 2014 and 2015 expected to win there.

Last year was even more glaring as Jacques Nienaber’s charges travelled Down Under as the world champs and number one ranked side in world rugby, having just won a series against the British and Irish Lions and beaten Argentina twice, only to then surprisingly blow both games.

However, this year they have no excuses, as they are not under the same difficult Covid restrictions that they faced last year and are coming up against a heavily depleted Wallabies side that has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.

Shorn of their best

Dave Rennie’s troops did receive a slight boost in the return of a few players who missed their Argentinean tour, however their squad to take on the Boks is still shorn of their best players.

Inspirational captain and one of the best loose forwards in world rugby, Michael Hooper, is their biggest loss, after he left the Argentinean leg just before the first Test due to him not being in the right frame of mind to lead the team, with it now confirmed that he will not feature against the Boks either.

The other major omissions, which were all confirmed ahead of the team announcement, are centre Samu Kerevi who suffered a knee injury during the Commonwealth Games, while Quade Cooper (Achilles), Tom Banks (broken arm) and Izack Rodda (foot) are all out for a while.

In an interesting twist the experienced James O’Connor was also left out of the squad despite having started their loss against Argentina this past weekend, with veteran Bernard Foley called up for the first time in three years.

In the end the Wallabies couldn’t be riper for the picking and the Boks need to win both their games Down Under if they are to signal that they will be a threat at next year’s World Cup.

The Boks departed South Africa for Australia on Thursday.