The South remembers.

For the next two months, the eye of world rugby will be fixed on that ancient nexus of power that once was Southern Hemisphere rugby.

Memory of those days may be hazy, but the reality is this will be the most competitive Rugby Championship in its history since 2012, when Argentina joined the coalition below the Equator.

This year’s Rugby Championship will be about battles for the memory of the rugby south. Of Wallabies, once bellicose and fleetfooted and wily, lately on the receiving end of the wallops more often than not; of the men of Andes country, so close to the summit of fulfilling the promise of what it meant to join the Rugby Championship those years ago.

And then the great rivalry. It’s an unfamiliar iteration of that ancestral rugby feud this year: the South Africans are in the ascendancy; the All Blacks are striving to revive the fearsome aura of Aotearoa rugby.

That old Auckland fortress, Eden Park, never looked so vulnerable.

The Wallabies are rebuilding towards the 2027 World Cup and gave a better account of themselves against the British and Irish Lions recently than most expected them to. A team that looked wet behind the ears under the last gasp of an Eddie Jones Hail Mary in the 2023 World Cup will be battle-hardened two years on, when they set foot on South African shores for their opening two Tests against the Springboks.

Los Pumas, too, prowl dangerously. They beat all three, including the Springboks, of their more illustrious opponents in their championship merry-go-round last season. It’s no small feat joining the giants of the North these days, Ireland, as the only teams to fell the Bok machine last year.

Furthermore, Felipe Contepomi’s men, many of whom play their club rugby in the internationals factories of France, beat the British and Irish Lions in Dublin on the eve of their tour Down Under before defeats to England followed.

For them, evolution will mean backing up erstwhile upset victories over their former superiors with another in quick succession to show they have become more than just spoilers of the party, but contenders to be regarded with grave concern.

The heart of All Black rugby is smarting from four consecutive defeats to the Springboks that began when nuclear violence befell them in the form of a 7-1 bench split at Twickenham in 2023. Scott Robertson is charged with the task of reinstating the fearsome giant of rugby’s global south. That’s what the battle of Eden Park means this year.

New Zealand have closely guarded that monument to South African gloom over the years. The Springboks, without a win there since 1937, have not visited Eden Park in 12 years.

From one Razor to another, Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is treading the line between the future and the formidable but ageing dad’s army. He has named his team to face the Wallabies, and he has been true to the promise of new blood.

But it’s the tour to New Zealand that will truly test his willingness to depart from traditional Bok rugby - the type that suffocates with sheer bloody-mindedness - in favour of this Tony-ball that originated in the land of the Maori.

The Boks have never tried to beat the All Blacks at their own game. Will they dare when the Garden of Eden beckons?

The catch-22 is that Erasmus’ grizzled warriors of two back-to-back World Cups are the ones who know well the old Bok way, and more so, the trench warfare that is All Black Tests.

Indeed, from Hillbrow’s din to Buenos Aires’ Latin strum, the Land of the Long White Cloud and the place where dingoes do roam, the South will remember.

* Rugby World Cup Year - shortened format;
** Tri-Nations tournament, as South Africa did not compete due to the pandemic.

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Design and production: Sharlene Rood & Lynn Butler
Words: Nicolette Lategan
News24 Sport Editor: Lloyd Burnard

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