Will the Boks be properly prepared to push for the ‘double’?

Down the years of marvelous achievements in the world of rugby, no Springbok head coach has yet managed to secure the magic “double”.

This magic double of course includes winning a World Cup title and securing a series win against the British and Irish Lions – by one coach.

It is one box that SA Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus and Bok coach Jacques Nienaber surely want to tick when the Boks host the touring Lions in a three-Test series in July and August.

While Nienaber will technically not achieve the double as he was the defence coach in 2019, he was very much part of the process, while Erasmus stepped away from the head coaching job after the win in Japan to concentrate on his Director of Rugby responsibilities.

But if one takes the coaches of the two other Bok World Cup wins, the late Kitch Christie and Jake White, neither was involved when the Lions toured in 1997 and 2009.

During the Lions tour of 1997 Christie had first been replaced by Andre Markgraaff and later Carel du Plessis, while White had been replaced by Peter de Villiers by the time the 2009 tour came around.

De Villiers though, who coached the Boks to victory against the Lions, had the opportunity to achieve that double when he took the Boks to the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand but the Boks were knocked out in the quarter-finals.

But for the Boks to achieve the double, Erasmus and Nienaber will have to ensure the national team has moved on from the heroics in Japan.

In the final the Boks out-scrummed England and suffocated them on defence and applied the slow poison before pulling away in the final 20 minutes.

Lions assistant coach Gregor Townsend was quoted in the United Kingdom press about how he has analysed the Boks’ approach in that final so it’s doubtful whether it will work a second time, although England are not the Lions.

Erasmus and Nienaber will also face several posers, like, are the players who performed so well in that final still capable of producing the same form now, two years on?

Erasmus would have noted too that the Bok players don’t have the luxury of being together for 19 weeks as a squad like they were before the final two years ago.

This time the Boks will only be together for two Tests against Georgia to sharpen them up for the Lions and it might not be sufficient preparation to challenge the talent of a formidable tourists.

Nienaber is, however, upbeat that the national camps will do the trick.

Let’s hope that will be the case.