In the Channel Islands they were in full charm-offensive mode, kicking back in local coffee shops and posing for autographs at Jersey airport. It was a signal that South Africa wanted to escape a casting as ugly ducklings, to project an image of themselves as open and accessible rather than as a band of merciless bruisers.
One quality that has tended to elude them, until now, is brand. While the All Blacks have Altrad, a worldwide manufacturing giant, on their jerseys, the Springboks’ sponsor is MTN, a domestic telecommunications company. It is one telling illustration of how far they still have to go in building their global profile.
By degrees, their attempts at redefinition are working. Even recently, it was popular to caricature the Springboks as a grimly pragmatic team whose philosophy was simply to attack hard and straight. Ian Foster, the former All Blacks coach, did not care for their series victory over the Lions, claiming that the second Test was based on a “low-risk strategy” and that it had “put me to sleep”. Tony Ward, the Ireland fly-half and a Lion himself on the tour of South Africa in 1980, went further by accusing them of “caveman tactics in pursuit of a plan driven by overhyped, ego-obsessed coaches”.
Nobody would suggest any surfeit of hype today. South Africa fully deserve the billing they bring to this latest visit to Twickenham, having demolished Argentina 48-7 and achieved the rarest feat of four consecutive triumphs over the All Blacks. Even as they soften their diplomacy, their tough-as-teak reputation on the pitch endures. Their obsession with winning is all-enveloping, and it is one a beleaguered England would do well to emulate.
You would imagine, as only the second team ever to win back-to-back World Cups, that the Springboks would inspire a level of admiration close to love. And yet as they rumble into Twickenham, ready to inflict savage punishment on England, the respect they command outside South Africa tends to be grudging at best.
Take the Irish documentary about doping in their rivals’ schoolboy rugby system, where the host accuses them of having “one of the worst sporting cultures in the world” and of behaving like “whingeing babies”.
The trouble is that the more these accusations are flung at them, the more uncompromising the South Africans’ psyche becomes. In Chasing the Sun 2, which chronicles their extraordinary path to lifting the Webb Ellis Cup last year – winning all three knockout games by a single point – Rassie Erasmus, the incorrigible head coach, shows his players the programme about drugs, plus a clip of Andy Goode, the former England No 10, describing them as “physical freaks” whom technically skilled players could outsmart
Instantly there is a reaction. “It’s something that got us f—— angry,” says hooker Bongi Mbonambi. “The way they see us is a little country in the corner of Africa – they think they can compete with the rest of the world when they have all the facilities, all the equipment, all the training grounds. English rolls better off their tongues than us. We were f—— upset.”
Erasmus has developed a way of using outsiders’ criticisms to strengthen his team’s defiant spirit. He berated them furiously after last year’s World Cup pool-phase defeat by Ireland, one of the highest-octane Tests ever staged, soon summoning the desired reaction as they retained their crown by the most slender of margins.
Southern hemisphere’s answer to Millwall
Erasmus remains a confounding, magnetic personality. In many ways, he is the ultimate pantomime villain, at one point communicating signals at the World Cup through garish lights that looked like children’s lava lamps. Not for nothing is he known in his homeland as “DJ Rassie”. Whether it is experimenting with disco methods or doubling as a water carrier during the last British and Irish Lions tour, he has a penchant for mischief that knows no bounds. It is as if he is trying to produce a siege mentality, fashioning his team into the southern hemisphere’s answer to Millwall.
But all this bravado conceals a certain insecurity, a longing to be adored. He spelt it out plainly enough during the Springboks’ autumn training camp in Jersey, saying: “You don’t want to make other people unhappy. You don’t want people not to like you, to think you are stubborn, to think you are arrogant – especially if you know the characters in the team.”
It is not as if South Africa are short of figures with whom they can redraw their characterisation as brutish or unrelatable. In Siya Kolisi, they have one of the most impressive captains in all sport, a man capable of turning a post-match press conference into the type of soaring peroration of which Barack Obama would be proud.
And for all the emphasis on “bomb squads” and 7:1 bench splits, there is an eclecticism to their team that goes beyond that terrifying scrum. Yes, Eben Etzebeth and RG Snyman might be the most fearsome locks on the planet, but to dwell on their physical presence alone risks overlooking their weapons out wide, whether in the jet heels of Cheslin Kolbe or the dazzling sevens skill-set of Kurt-Lee Arendse.
In the Channel Islands they were in full charm-offensive mode, kicking back in local coffee shops and posing for autographs at Jersey airport. It was a signal that South Africa wanted to escape a casting as ugly ducklings, to project an image of themselves as open and accessible rather than as a band of merciless bruisers.
One quality that has tended to elude them, until now, is brand. While the All Blacks have Altrad, a worldwide manufacturing giant, on their jerseys, the Springboks’ sponsor is MTN, a domestic telecommunications company. It is one telling illustration of how far they still have to go in building their global profile.
By degrees, their attempts at redefinition are working. Even recently, it was popular to caricature the Springboks as a grimly pragmatic team whose philosophy was simply to attack hard and straight. Ian Foster, the former All Blacks coach, did not care for their series victory over the Lions, claiming that the second Test was based on a “low-risk strategy” and that it had “put me to sleep”. Tony Ward, the Ireland fly-half and a Lion himself on the tour of South Africa in 1980, went further by accusing them of “caveman tactics in pursuit of a plan driven by overhyped, ego-obsessed coaches”.
Nobody would suggest any surfeit of hype today. South Africa fully deserve the billing they bring to this latest visit to Twickenham, having demolished Argentina 48-7 and achieved the rarest feat of four consecutive triumphs over the All Blacks. Even as they soften their diplomacy, their tough-as-teak reputation on the pitch endures. Their obsession with winning is all-enveloping, and it is one a beleaguered England would do well to emulate.