Springboks attack coach Tony Brown believes that by evolving their style of play over the last two years, the world champions have become more difficult to beat.

Over the years, most of the Springboks’ success has been built on their pragmatic approach to the game, in which they employ a conservative game-plan that relies primarily on forward dominance and a fly-half with an accurate kicking game, out of hand and at goal.

That style of play has been crucial in helping them succeed in recent years, and win back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles in Japan in 2019 and France in 2023, as well as their three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions in 2021.

However, since Brown joined the world champions’ coaching group in 2024, they have looked more dangerous with the ball in hand. Their new approach has seen them win back-to-back Rugby Championship titles in 2024 and 2025, while they also completed a victorious Autumn Nations Series campaign in Europe at the end of last year.

On Monday, Brown and Springboks defence coach Jerry Flannery – who also joined the Boks’ backroom staff in 2024 – fronted the media at a press conference in Cape Town and the latter was asked how South Africa have evolved since their 2023 World Cup triumph, how much the next 18 months to two years is about consolidation of what’s been achieved and how much more evolution there is to come in various departments.

While Flannery revealed that there has been growth in his department, he was unequivocal that the biggest evolution has been made by Brown with the Boks’ attack.

I think the biggest (defensive) one is that, if you speak really plainly, is that (his predecessor) Jacques (Nienaber) has laid the massive foundation for the two World Cup wins with the work that he did around the defence.

“And I think that that was probably something that was overarching around the South African game, it’s embracing the stuff that South Africans do better than anyone else.

Which is being so physical, being so fit as well and I think that’s given a great framework.

‘A bit more evolution towards the attack’

“I think Tony’s come in and there’s probably been a bit more evolution towards the attack. In terms of the attack was not as constrained going forward then and Brownie’s taken it to another level.

I don’t think you can ever say you can consolidate and sit on something and say it’s okay. Because as we’ve seen, we were just chatting about the Six Nations, the game is constantly evolving. And you’ve got to be on it every single week looking to see where is there a small gain that you can make there and take advantage of the direction the game is going.

And I think Brownie has been world-class at doing that with us.”

Brown feels that the Boks’ biggest success has been how they have combined various aspects of their game to become the dominant force in the international arena over the past two years.

I just think that probably over the last two years you’ve seen us not just defend for long periods of time. Not just attack or go to the kicking game,” he said.

I think the evolution of Springbok rugby is how we combine our defence, attack, kicking game, set-piece. And we combine it together and try and put teams under massive pressure to obviously score points and win Test matches.

So, we never ever look at a Test match where we’re going to attack and we’re going to put these guys under huge pressure with our attack.

“We always go: ‘This is how we control the game. This is how we use our kicking game. This is how we use our defence to create turnovers’.

‘I think that’s probably been the evolution’

“And then we build our attack off those two things. So, I think that’s probably been the evolution. The players have enjoyed it, the players have got better as we’ve gone through the last couple of years.

They’re starting to understand how it all fits together now. So, I feel as though we’re in a powerful position to push that forward over the next 12 months.

The former All Blacks fly-half feels the Springboks have become adaptable in various match situations, which makes it difficult for opponents to break them down.

I think no rugby team can look at the Springboks and go: ‘If we shut this down, we’re going to win the Test match’. “I think we’ve got so many different layers to our game now,” he explained.

We can win with defence, we can win with scrum, we can win with the kicking game. We can win with counterattack, we can win with turnover attack, we can win with sets piece attack.

So, I think we’re a lot more dangerous as a rugby team now, and it’s exciting to see where we can push it.”