While declaring the Springboks ready to win this year’s Rugby World Cup, legendary former Bok scrum half Fourie du Preez also bemoaned South African rugby’s tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater
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“Why would people have felt that way?” he asked a touch indignantly. “Ten [it’s actually 12] of the guys in the Bok team are from a team that almost won the World Cup. Shouldn’t they be good enough to win the World Cup four years later? “Why would we start at zero instead of a two-point loss and try to be 10% better so we can beat the All Blacks the following year – why start at zero again? For me, that’s clueless,” he said.
Du Preez’s enthusiasm about the Boks’ World Cup chances was emboldened by the way his countrymen had played against the All Blacks juggernaut in their past three games, when only one point separated the two teams in their 2-1 lead held by Steve Hansen’s men. As a man who has won a rare seven of the 13 games he played against the All Blacks, Du Preez doesn’t buy into the idea that the men in black are “immortal”.
Officially, Du Preez’s favourites to win the World Cup are South Africa, New Zealand and England . The first for the reasons already mentioned, the All Blacks for having set the standard over the past eight years and England because they have “the best coach at the World Cup” in Eddie Jones, his old mentor at Suntory Sungoliath in Japan.
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