With the Springboks starting the 2025 season against teams that are low down in the world rankings, they have not been able to bank any rating points at a time when arch-rivals the All Blacks have secured a 3-0 clean-sweep against France.
Although France have sent a weakened team to New Zealand, the All Blacks will be thrilled to have secured a succession of good wins before the Rugby Championship, while also cutting into the Springboks’ lead at the top of the rankings.
South Africa now only have a gap of 0.72 points at the top of the rankings.
UPDATED WORLD RANKING AS SPRINGBOKS’ LEAD SHRINKS
| 1 | South Africa | 92.78 | |
| 2 | New Zealand | 92.06 | (+0.34) |
| 3 | Ireland | 89.83 | |
| 4 | France | 87.82 | (-0.34) |
| 5 | England | 87.64 | |
| 6 | Australia | 82.08 | |
| 7 | Argentina | 82.05 | |
| 8 | Scotland | 81.57 | (+0.20) |
| 9 | Fiji | 80.50 | |
| 10 | Italy | 77.77 |
POSITIVE RESULT FOR SOUTH AFRICA
Meanwhile, Rassie Erasmus said he was satisfied with the 55-10 win against Georgia, but attributed a stop-start performance to having rotated the squad throughout the four-match series (including the non-Test match against Barbarians).
In the three matches since the opener against the invitational team in Cape Town, the Bok selectors made 10, 15 and 16 personnel changes in successive weeks.
“We’re fairly happy if you look over the four games,” said Erasmus.
“We scored close to 50 points in each match and apart from the first Italy test defended pretty well.
“Georgia were physical and disruptive but that’s not an excuse for us making so many errors, but I guess we must understand that if we chop and change teams like we have as we’re building squad depth, you’ll lose rhythm.
“We found that again in the last 20 minutes and we can be fairly happy with the scoreline although one can always do better.”
The Springboks now have a three-week break before the opening Test in the Rugby Championship with Erasmus indicating selection would be more consistent.
“We’ll name 36 guys on Tuesday for the Australia series and within that squad there’ll be one or two guys that we experiment with, but the bulk of that squad will be experienced players who are suited to the way we want to play,” he said.
“The nice thing is that we’ve got a group of 48 players or so that we’ve used this year and there’s quite a couple that we’d also like to give opportunities to like Jaden (Hendrikse), Jordan (Hendrikse), Quan Horn, Renzo (du Plessis).
“But this was a series where we wanted to experiment a little bit so getting the scorelines we did is pretty satisfying. But the Rugby Championship is definitely a step up.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE LATEST TEST RESULTS?
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