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Eben Etzebeth - Unlocked

2: Reluctant Enforcer

“Something else I learnt during that tournament was that some teams are very different beasts in their own backyard than they are away from home. We beat Argentina fairly comfortably at Newlands, but the following week in Mendoza was the most physical game I'd played up to that point. The atmosphere was hostile, more like football than rugby, which made the Argentine players that much more up for it. And the more their players got on top of us, the louder the crowd became. It was like playing in the eye of the storm – 80 minutes of deafening noise and getting clattered from all sides – and we were fortunate to be down only 13-3 at half-time. We escaped with a draw only because of a late charge-down try and conversion from Frans Steyn.

In 2013, we put 70 points past Argentina in Johannesburg, only for the Pumas to almost beat us the following week, again in Mendoza (two late penalties from Morné Steyn gave us a narrow victory). How can a team transform from boys to men in the space of seven days? I can only put it down to the home crowd making their players believe, although all that passion can also make them do the craziest things.

As time went on, I worked out that opponents were going out of their way to get under my skin and I learnt to laugh it off – you’ll usually see a big grin on my face when pushing and showing breaks out. Having said that, I’ll always get upset if I see someone taking a liberty with a teammate.

McCaw knew the laws inside out and was a genius at judging how a referee would interpret the breakdown, which is why he was able to push the boundaries while not getting penalised as much as some people thought he should have been. He also had good people skills. He didn’t complain about every little mistake because he knew that might irritate the referee and 50-50 decisions might start going against his team. And by flagging things only when he really needed to, always calmly and clearly, he made referees think, He hasnt said much until now, maybe I did get that wrong.

People who call McMaw a cheat don’t know what they’re talking about, I also learnt how important it was to know the laws (especially in my department), push boundaries, not pester a referee, and complain in a respectful manner only when I thought he’d really screwed up.

4: Devastation

“Biggar went off with a head injury with 6 minutes to go, and from the next scrum Duane Vermeulen broke blind and gave a sneaky back-hand pass to Fourie du Preez, who scored in the corner. That wasn’t a planned move – the scrum just skewed slightly, Duane picked up the ball and Fourie noticed there was no one defending the blind side.

Some people thought Wales were unlucky but that’s not how I saw it. Winning games is always a team effort but some games come down to individual brilliance. And great players produce those X-factor moments when they’re needed most, just as Fourie and Duane did that day. It wasn’t just that Duane produced that back-hand pass, it was also that he read the situation while holding off a defender at the back of a wheeling scrum. As for Fourie, he had the IQ to know Duane was going to pass the ball, and he was deft enough to run that line without any Welsh defenders picking him up.

It’s comforting to know you’ve got guys like that on the pitch, players who aren't going to keep battering on the door, to no avail, but have it in them to pick the lock instead.

Maybe you only really understood how good Duane was when you were in the same team as him, because I thought he was the best eighthman in the world and certainly the best I’d played with.

He gave teammates tremendous confidence because he knew exactly what his role was and fulfilled it to the letter, game in, game out.

5: No Way Back?

“But while Allister thought we needed to be a bit more expansive, that was easier said than done.

Different times have what South Africans call their ‘big rocks’, and the Springboks’ big rocks had always been a good defensive system, a solid set piece and a physical pack. I was still young and my understanding of the game wasn’t what it would become, but in hindsight we should have just improved those big rocks and fine-tuned as we went along. Instead, we neglected them, thinking we could suddenly be like the All Blacks. If only sport was that simple.

New Zealanders play rugby the way they do because they were raised in a certain culture. Playing expansive, attacking rugby is in their DNA, and even it was no longer paying dividends they’d never dream of playing like the Springboks. Instead, they’d work hard to improve on what they did best. In the same way, it would be madness for a country like Fiji to try to play like the Boks because their rugby DNA is speed, athleticism and flair. Yes, they need to work on their set piece and game management, but the most important thing for them, and try any sporting team, is to adhere to an identity.

Maybe I’m not empathetic enough and some people cope with losing differently from me, but I’ve always thought that if you lose a game of professional rugby, especially a Test match, you shouldn’t be acting as if you’ve just lost a friendly game of table tennis, laughing and joking over a few beers. If you’re not hurt and angry after losing, you don’t care enough and losing again won’t bother you.

It was one thing shipping 50 points to world championships New Zealand, but what happened in Europe at the end of 2016 was something else entirely.

Looking back on our squad for that tour, it seems incredible that things went so badly. Loads of those guys are now considered to be Springbok greats – Beast, Willie le Roux, Damien de Allende, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Lood de Jager, Vincent Koch, Bongi Mbonambi, Steven Kitshoff, Franco Mostert, Faf de Klerk.

We were a mess, light years away from being the best in the world. Some pundits claimed we were the worst Springbok team in history. We’d lost eight Test matches in a calendar year for the first time, and in almost every game our opponents set some new record against us: our first defeat by Ireland at home, our first defeat by the Pumas in Argentina, our biggest defeat by the All Blacks, our first defeat by Italy, our biggest defeat by Wales.

The whole Springbok organisation was probably to blame – players, coaching staff, management – because nothing was aligning.

Occasionally you play a game where everything goes the opposition’s way and nothing goes yours, and that was certainly the case in Albany. At the same time, the All Blacks were ruthlessly efficient at turning lucky breaks into points. And like a batsman who can score all around the wicket, they accumulated points almost without you noticing, so that you’d look up at the scoreboard and think, How the hell did that happen?

They weren’t necessarily spectacular (although they did score a few outstanding tries), they just made the most of every scoring opportunity. And the more we felt the game slipping away from us, the more desperate we became, and suddenly we were doing things we didn’t normally do – running everything, trying risky passes and offloads, making more and more mistakes. And instead of the mistakes being in their half, they were in our half and the All Blacks gleefully seized on them. In the end, the only sensible option was to batten down the hatches and hope it didn’t get too ugly and humiliating. But we left it too late.

I suggested to the coaches that we should do something to relieve the tension, otherwise the guys would go crazy holed up in their hotel rooms. So I invited all the forwards to a spit braai at my house on the Monday, with a live band and instructions to relax and not talk about rugby.

As the week progressed, I knew I had to do everything in my power to give the team an edge. To that end, I wrote a note for each player, telling them that they were going to play great at the weekend. And on the day of the game, I left a note on each player’s locker, letting them know that I still backed them and honestly believed we could beat New Zealand, despite what happened in Albany.

I already knew from my experience at the 2015 World Cup that a couple of weeks is a long time in rugby, but I’m not sure anyone thought we had hope of bouncing back from a 57-point deficit against the All Blacks, especially since neither team had changed much in terms of personnel. But this time we were able to snuff out a couple of early try-scoring opportunities and gain a foothold.

We were leading with 12 minutes to go, until a magical try by All Black full back Damian McKenzie and late penalty by Sopoaga. Malcolm Marx barged over for a try at the death and the conversion made it 24-25 but they managed to hold on for the win, their sixth in a row against us. The All Blacks had won all six of their games for their fifth title in six years, while we’d finished third behind Australia, with two wins, two draws and two defeats.

6: Just Getting Started

“Allister was further impeded by a rule SARU introduced in 2017 requiring overseas-based players to have at least 30 Test caps to be eligible for selection. It was designed to stop players leaving the country but it further reduced the Springbok talent pool.

When I returned to the Stormers the muscle in my arm had wasted away and my biceps weren’t much thicker than my wrist.

My main concern was if I’d be able to still be as physical as before, so seeing myself wither away and not being able to do anything about it wasn’t lekker. Even when some movement finally returned, after about two months, I had to start with 1 kg dumbbell curls and I couldn't even benchpress the bar.

More cause for optimism was SARU’s decision to scrap the 30-cap overseas rule. Instead, home-based players would get top-up payments from SARU according to a new ranking system. Players could still earn more overseas, which is why even more left in 2018, including Franco Mostert for Gloucester, but at least there was some incentive to remain in South Africa and Rassie now had hundreds more players to choose from.

There were only five foreign-based players in Rassie’s first 43-man squad, but that number would rise over the next few years, with the likes of Cobus Reinach (Northampton), Faf de Klerk (Sale), Willie le Roux (Wasps), Vincent Koch and Schalk Brits (both Saracens), being brought back in from the cold.

Siya was given a rapturous reception at Ellis Park, but other than that his introduction as captain couldn’t have gone much worse.

I also wondered what Siya said under the poles after their third try. I later found out that he asked a couple of senior guys to speak up and I assume their response was, ‘Let’s stick to the plan, go harder and things will turn at some point.’

Some people think a leader asking for help is a sign of weakness but it’s actually one of Siya’s biggest strengths. Sometimes as a captain you don’t know what to say, but if you’ve got players like Duane Vermeulen and Handré Pollard beside you in the trenches, you’d be a fool not to tap into their knowledge.

He put in a man-of-the-match performance in that first Test, and although England came back at us hard in the final stages, the guys hung on for a heartening 42-39 victory.

I’d been speaking to Siya quite a lot and hearing only good things about the new regime, but nothing could prepare me for my first proper sitdown team meeting with Rassie at Kings Park. For the previous few years, journalists and pundits had been imploring the Boks to develop a more sophisticated game – play more like the All Blacks, in other words – and here was Rassie saying physicality was the very essence of South African rugby; and rather than doing something different, he thought that we needed to double down.

As far as Rassie was concerned, we could spend lots of time working on other parts of the game and still lose more matches than we won, but if we focused on making our big rock more solid we’d win more games than we’d lose. Then, once we’d nailed the physical stuff, we could start thinking about adding bells and whistles. As you can imagine, all this talk of physicality was great to hear for us as players, and I left that meeting thinking, This guy is the real deal.”

Rassie didn't do one-on-one meetings with players. Instead we’d turn up to a meeting early in the week and the team would be on the board. He’d go through it, explaining why such and such a player was starting, why such and such a player wasn’t starting and maybe why he would be starting in two weeks’ time. It was an open, honest way of doing things, preferable to explaining his reasoning to individual players behind closed doors, which can breed suspicion.

Rassie was very much the man in charge but he wasn’t a dictator. He didn’t want an environment where some players felt more important than others, he wanted everyone to feel equal. There was still a slight separation of older and younger guys but the younger guys weren't expected to sit in the corner and be quiet.

Rassie made six changes to his starting line-up for the game against the Wallabies in Brisbane but we still came up short, making it four losses in seven games since he took over. Newspapers were already talking about a crisis, with Rassie’s chopping and changing coming in for a lot of criticism. What people didn’t realise was that he wasn’t mixing things up for the sake of it, there was science behind it. Rassie’s aim was to build combinations and find out what worked best for the team and he was putting players in tough situations to find out whether they belonged at that level. If they didn’t, he’d weed them out.

7: Rassie United

“‘In this team’, he said, ‘transformation is about more than certain guys playing because they’re black or white, it’s about accepting and respecting each other’s cultures.’ Because if we did that, he said, people would feel comfortable being themselves and play better on the weekend. As such, we’d be more likely to win together, and the more we won together, the quicker we’d transform the mindset of the South African public.

Rassie had a set of rules that every player had to abide by but he also knew he couldn't treat everyone the same. An Afrikaner who went back to farm school in the Boland is likely to be different from a black guy who grew up in a township or someone from a wealthy family who attended an exclusive school in Cape Town. The coaching staff understood that they had to be empathetic to individual needs within a framework that applied to everyone.

Rassie homed in on the fact that black players liked to sing and dance before a game while white players preferred peace and quiet (in South African rugby, you don’t really get guys who scream, shout and headbutt walls). He’d noticed that some plates were irritated by the singing and dancing and realised that a compromise needed to be struck.

We were a transformed team, different players come from different cultures and have different beliefs, and we must find a way that works for everyone.

Before Rassie, if transformation was discussed by coaches at all it was whispered about behind closed doors, presumably because they feared it would cause divisions. But Rassie wasn't afraid to mention it. For example, before we played New Zealand at Newlands in 2024, he asked Deon Davids to chat to the team about why so many coloured people still supported the All Blacks against the Boks.

One of the keys to our improvement under Rassie was the addition to his coaching staff of Welshman Aled Walters as head of athletic performance.

Like Jacques Nienaber, Aled had been with Rassie at Munster, and when he joined the Springbok set-up in 2018 he didn’t think we were fit enough.

We had the raw materials to achieve that –lots of big, strong forwards – but previously hadn't been fit enough to dominate for long. However, with Aled whipping us into the best shape we’d ever been in, that changed in 2018. Aled’s fitness sessions were brutal, as were Matt’s scrumming sessions, and by the time of the 2019 Rugby Championship we were confident in our ability as a pack.

8: Completing Rugby

“There was a poignant moment after the game that left some of us close to tears. Before the tournament, someone had the idea of having photos of loved ones superimposed on each players’ number, and we were asked to send in six each. At the jersey presentation, some guys quickly realised that while most of us had photos of parents, siblings, children, close friends and mentors on our numbers, Mapimpi had six different photos of himself.

People thought that maybe he hadn’t understood what they wanted. And at the post-match fines meeting Francois Louw stood up and proposed that Mapimpi be convicted of fancying himself too much. It was classic rugby banter and done in a light-hearted way, but things were about to get a bit awkward. It’s always the case that the accused get to defend themselves, and when Mapimpi got to his feet and was asked, ‘How do you plead?’ he explained that he only had photos of himself because he didn’t have any family left. Nobody was laughing any more and Francois was mortified. He paid the fine himself, in the form of a downed beer, and couldn't stop apologising to Mapimpi. Talk about a sobering moment.

Besides, he had already weeded out any guys he thought could be a virus. He’d say, ‘The 31 guys in the squad aren’t necessarily the most talented but they’re the right guys for this team.’ He understood that sometimes you had a player who was arguably the best in his position in club rugby but also sulked, moaned about game plans and faculties, talked kak about people and infected the whole environment. Other coaches don't notice those players but Rassie spots them immediately and never considers picking them again.

Going into the game, we knew they were going to kick almost every time they got the ball and that we were just going to kick it back. Rassie said more than once, ‘Don’t get bored of the plan,’ because he knew the team that ran out of patience first would probably end up losing. You have to be very disciplined to carry out such a simple, some might say limited, game plan. It’s particularly difficult if you’re a winger or full back whose first instinct is to run into space, and it takes only one have-a-go hero going off script to ruin things.

We probably should have been further ahead at half-time but Rassie was calm in the changing room. The only thing I remember him saying was that any signs of tiredness would give England hope, so we should get back on our feet as soon as possible after going to ground.

9: Lion Taming

“Our 46-man squad for the series included 22 overseas-based players, a significant increase from the 2019 world cup. Putting aside whether that reflected well on South Africa’s domestic rugby, the overseas players brought different perspectives and insider knowledge to the Bok set-up. It was almost as if we had spies in the Lion’s ranks because the guys who played in Europe had played with or against pretty much everyone in their squad. They had first-hand experience of how they did things, their strengths and weaknesses, which is very different from watching players on tapes.

It’s the nature of sport that sometimes you have a bad day, and there were obvious reasons for our under-par performance. But when Rassie took over we weren’t allowed to have excuses. It didn’t matter if we’d been travelling a lot, playing loads of games, training too hard or not training enough, Rassie’s attitude was, ‘You can’t on the one hand say you’d do anything to play for the Boks, that you’d die on the field for your country, and on the other hand say that you didn’t feel quite right. That’s bullshit.

10: Love and Fresh Perspectives

“Rassie and Jacques genuinely thought those guys were good enough to beat Wales, and the fact that we ended up losing that second Test when we should have put it to bed by halftime was neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things.

12: That’s Transformation

“But even as I simmered I came to see Rassie’s intervention as more proof of his genius.

While Duane and I didn’t think our occasional disagreements were much of an issue, Rassie could see a problem before it had become a problem. He was like a mechanic with an engine, and he’d worked out that Duane and I were two cogs that weren’t quite meshing. And if our teeth weren’t filed down soon, we’d risk crashing the whole machine. Maybe not in the next game but somewhere down the line.

I now believe that if that meeting hadn’t happened, maybe we wouldn’t have gone all the way. Who knows, but he certainly grabbed the guys by the throats and got everyone back on task, which was to sort out any personal differences and give everything for the team for the next couple of weeks.

Ramos doesn’t really miss, so most of us were standing behind the poles thinking he was going to knock the conversion over. But not Cheslin. He saw that Ramos had made a small movement towards the ball, ran hell for leather and charged down the kick. I’d never seen anyone do that before, not even at school. They should think about making Cheslin the patron saint of lost causes.

Professional sport is all about fine margins, and to win three World Cup knockout games by a point you need a bit of luck. But so many of our players had been through tough times in their lives – growing up without shoes and too poor to eat, surrounded by people who were tempted into crime and wound up in jail, stuff that players in other top teams couldn't even imagine – and that surely enabled them to dig deeper at clutch moments in big games.

I’ll show those videos to my kids and grandchildren, and hopefully by then the Springboks won’t be the only thing that can unite the country.

When we drove through Khayelitsha, a sprawling township not far from Cape Town airport, lots of little black kids were running behind the bus shouting,’Siya! Siya!’ But suddenly I heard them shouting, ‘Elizabedi! Elizabedi!’ I turned to Siya and said, ‘You know what, my brother, people think having a certain amount of players of colour in a team is transformation, but this right here is transformation.’ My name being chanted in a Black neighbourhood.

13: Still Hungry

“Rassie’s experimentation isn't over, I can guarantee you that. But I reckon that by mid-2026 he’ll have identified a big group of players good enough to be selected for the World Cup. Not necessarily the most gifted players but definitely guys Rassie thinks will die for the Boks. Fitting the right people in the right places, on and off field, is one of Rassie’s great talents.