All pressure on Boks as Wallabies have nothing to lose at Ellis Park

Daily Maverick

a day ago

The Springboks begin the defence of their Rugby Championship title with a target on their backs as the best team in the world.
The Springboks have much to lose when they meet the Wallabies at Ellis Park to open the 2025 Rugby Championship.
That is the privilege and curse of being the best team in the world, underlined by winning the last two World Cups and the 2024 Rugby Championship.
Australia, by contrast, are in a trough in which the only way is up. If they lose at Ellis Park for the seventh successive time in the professional era, it won't be a surprise.
Better Wallaby teams than the 2025 vintage have lost to far worse Bok teams than the current crop at the grand old stadium. It's a tough place for visitors to win.
With that in mind Australia will have the freedom to play without stifling pressure.
'Go out there and express yourselves,' might be coach Joe Schmidt's words to his team.
They have some confidence from two very good outings in the second and third Tests against the British & Irish Lions. They're battle-hardened through the tribulations and triumphs of that emotional series.
They have a chance to do something no Aussie team has achieved in the post-isolation era — win at Ellis Park. The Wallabies also haven't won anywhere in South Africa since 2011, so there is another incentive for them.
Pressure
In short, the Boks have all the pressure on them.
As a one-off Test, the Boks should and must beat the Wallabies at a venue where Australia haven't won since 1963 — anything else would be a sporting disaster.
In the wider context the Boks need to bag a full set of 10 log points in these two clashes against Australia in Johannesburg and in Cape Town next week to lay a foundation to retain the Rugby Championship.
And in a wider context still, they need to justify the increasingly prohibitive ticket prices, which in the highest bracket are more than R17,000 for the 'Full Supporter Package'.
There were only a handful of the cheapest tickets priced at R525, which were snapped up ages ago.
Next week's Test in Cape Town still has thousands of unsold tickets, and a brief search on Ticketmaster on 15 August 2025 revealed thousands of available seats ranging from R1,750 to R3,500.
Quite simply if the Boks start losing, especially at home, the South African Rugby Union (Saru) will begin to come under increasing pressure from a public that adores the Boks, but is mostly struggling to make ends meet.
There is no doubt the Boks are beloved, but goodwill has its limits; the Boks understand this.
Tactical battle
So, what of the actual rugby? Well, Rassie Erasmus has selected a side primed to play with pace and width off the foundation of direct power and rapid ruck speed.
Flyhalf Manie Libbok is the best distributor and attacking creator in the squad because he is always alive to putting teammates into space.
With Grant Williams at scrumhalf, the Boks have two halfbacks who will lift the tempo, especially if the forwards win the contact battle and give the home side momentum at source.
Libbok can unpick any defence with the right type of possession, and outside of him the Boks have a swathe of players from Kurt-Lee Arendse and Aphelele Fassi, to Jesse Kriel who can profit from Libbok's service.
Australia did well to starve the Lions of possession for long periods in the second and third Test, and were the better team because of it. But the Boks are not a possession-driven team — they are a team that uses defensive pressure as a weapon to create turnovers and opportunities.
Simply put, they're as comfortable without the ball as they are with it, which is why they have become so difficult to beat.
Perhaps the key tactic for Australia is to dominate territory rather than possession. If they can find a way to pin the Boks back and frustrate them, therefore agitating the crowd, they could profit.
They will target the breakdown and make it messy, which is why Erasmus opted for Siya Kolisi at No 8 in tandem with Marco van Staden. He knows that stopping the Wallabies from slowing their ball at the breakdown is key to the rest of the blueprint coming together.
Conversely, Australia know their best chance lies in making life a misery on the deck, which is why they added another breakdown specialist in Nick Champion de Crespigny to the bench to maintain pressure in that area for 80 minutes.
Behind the pack, in un-retired scrumhalf Nic White they have the type of character and player to fluster the Boks.
The problem for the Wallabies is that with 35-year-old James O'Connor at flyhalf they have experience, but also a potential liability. The Wallaby halfbacks have a combined age of 70.
Suffocating defence
Will O'Connor turn back the years, will he stick to script or play off-the-cuff rugby as he has done in the past and run into trouble when swamped by the most suffocating defence in the sport?
O'Connor last played a game — if you could call it that — when he appeared for one minute in the Super Rugby Pacific final for the Crusaders. That was two months ago. He last played a Test three years ago.
O'Connor started just once for the Crusaders in Super Rugby this season — a match they lost against Moana Pasifika.
And without any flyhalf cover on the bench, what if O'Connor is injured early in the game? Coach Joe Schmidt has taken a huge gamble by initially only bringing two flyhalves on tour, which blew up in his face when Ben Donaldson was injured in Thursday's final training session.
Tane Edmed, who played a Test at flyhalf last November, has subsequently been called up to the squad, but won't feature at Ellis Park.
Even if O'Connor plays the entire game and White pulls every trick from his little book of niggles, it won't be enough unless the Wallaby pack at worst gain parity with the Boks, which is no mean feat.
If the Boks have a potential weakness, it's on the bench with two callow props in Asenathti Ntlabakanye and Boan Venter, who was a late replacement for Jan-Hendrik Wessels.
They have two Test caps between them and will be up against an experienced set of Wallaby props. It's a sliver of hope for the Aussies to cling to. DM
Teams
South Africa – 15 Aphelele Fassi, 14 Edwill van der Merwe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Andre Esterhuizen, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Grant Williams, 8 Siya Kolisi (captain), 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit , 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nché. Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Boan Venter, 18 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Cobus Reinach, 22 Canan Moodie, 23 Damian Willemse.
Australia: 15 Tom Wright, 14 Max Jorgensen, 13 Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i, 12 Len Ikitau, 11 Dylan Pietsch, 10 James O'Connor, 9 Nic White, 8 Harry Wilson (captain), 7 Fraser McReight, 6 Tom Hooper, 5 Will Skelton, 4 Nick Frost, 3 Taniela Tupou, 2 Billy Pollard, 1 James Slipper. Replacements: 16 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 17 Angus Bell, 18 Zane Nonggorr, 19 Jeremy Williams, 20 Langi Gleeson, 21 Nick Champion de Crespigny, 22 Tate McDermott, 23 Andrew Kellaway.