CAPE TOWN - With the 2021 Rugby Championship crumbling all around them, all of a sudden the Springboks and the Pumas are the last men standing.
New Zealand, reeling from the staggering catastrophe of SEVEN new Covid-19 cases in one day, have battened down the hatches on their beleaguered islands and who knows when the All Blacks next will surface.
Yesterday, the CEO of New Zealand Rugby briefly appeared from behind the castle parapets to shout across the moat that the All Blacks would not travel to Perth to play the Wallabies, and would remain in splendid isolation with the drawbridge firmly pulled up.
The terror-stricken Kiwis have also called off their two Championship Tests against the Boks, the first of which is the centenary celebration. That match was scheduled for Dunedin, the South Island city where the Boks first played the All Blacks in 1921. Both countries some time ago knew that was not going to happen because of New Zealand’s paranoid border controls but there was real hope that the whole bunfight could go down in Perth — the Pumas, Boks, All Blacks and Wallabies et al.
As things stand, the Australians are hugely annoyed that the All Blacks are no-shows, while the Boks and the Pumas are suddenly looking forward to an unexpected holiday — they were going to board the same plane tomorrow night to Perth, but now the only place they are going is home.
With the Rugby Championship ship sinking faster than the Titanic, the Currie Cup could erupt into life with Springbok players suddenly shorn of national duty.
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Before we start lowering the lifeboats there is still a beacon of light burning at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
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The Boks and the Pumas will forge ahead with their jol and to heck with the party-poopers from Down Under.
Lest we forget, the Boks are technically the Rugby Championship defending champions given that they turned their noses up at the 2020 party held in Australia, which the organisers promptly renamed the Tri-Nations.
As things stand, the Boks are World Cup holders, Lions series winners and Rugby Championship champions, and even if the latter title is sounding a little hollow right now, the Boks will gladly hold on to it.
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As captain Siya Kolisi puts it, the Boks can only play what is in front of them, and to the absolute best of their ability, because the world is an incredibly fluid place these days and — to use a rugby cliché — you can only control the controllables.
“Each player, when he accepts being chosen into the team for the first time, wants to leave this jersey in a better place than when we got it,” he said.
“You want to give everything you can while you've got the privilege of wearing the Springbok jersey.
“We want to win every single game that we play, and we prepare to win every game we play. We want to win every competition we’re playing in, otherwise, it would just be a waste.
“We put the same effort into each game, no matter who we're playing. We narrow it down to each week ... it's the same processes as the week before.
“We obviously do have the end goal, which is winning that trophy, but we are trying to not think any further than the Pumas.”
KICK-OFF: TODAY AT 5.05PM
Springboks:
15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Franco Mostert, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Marvin Orie, 3 Thomas du Toit, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Trevor Nyakane
Substitutes: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Frans Malherbe, 19 Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Dan du Preez, 22 Jaden Hendrikse, 23 Damian Willemse
Argentina:
15 Juan Cruz Mallía, 14 Ignacio Mendy, 13 Santiago Chocobares, 12 Jerónimo de la Fuente, 11 Santiago Carreras, 10 Domingo Miotti, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Rodrigo Bruni, 7 Guido Petti, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Tomás Lavanini, 4 Matías Alemanno, 3 Francisco Gómez Kodela, 2 Julián Montoya (captain), 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro
Substitutes: 16 Facundo Bosch, 17 Facundo Gigena, 18 Santiago Medrano, 19 Marcos Kremer, 20 Juan Martín González, 21 Felipe Ezcurra, 22 Nicolás Sánchez, 23 Lucio Cinti
IOL Sport