SOUTH Africa bucked the overall World Cup trend twice at the 2019 tournament. The first time they did so was by appointing Rassie Erasmus as head coach in March 2018, a mere one year and eight months before he took the Springboks to their third, and most decisive, World Cup final success – with England their victims.
The general consensus before Erasmus was that two years is far too short a time in which to build a world champion side, and the fact that he did it in 20 months has led to a reassessment.
The second trend that was bucked is that the 2019 Spring- boks became the first side to...