Eddie Jones thinks that the Springboks may have ‘peaked’ too soon ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup and believes a law adjustment could depower one of their biggest strengths.
Following the 2023 World Cup success in France, Rassie Erasmus has returned to the head coaching position and has overseen back-to-back Rugby Championship title victories.
The Boks have also gone unbeaten on their last two November tours and remain at the top of the World Rugby rankings.
Springboks’ decline is coming
With a full year of international rugby ahead of them before entering the World Cup year, Jones believes that the Springboks may have peaked too soon, as two years is too long to be at the top of your game.
“I’ve got a theory on South Africa that maybe they’re hitting their peak right now,” the Japan head coach said on the rugby podcast
And is the timing right? Because two years to retain a peak is a long time. So, they’ve been playing some sensational rugby.”
South Africa have hugely benefited from the outlawing of escorts, which would form a glove around a receiving catcher when the opposition hoisted an up and under or box kick. Despite being smaller wingers, Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse have thrived in the now more contested facet of the game.
Their ability to capitalise on the loose ball after the competition for possession has also played in their favour, as has the adjustment in the way the scrum is being officiated. However, the experienced coach warns that if World Rugby adopt another rugby league law, it will depower South Africa’s strength under the high ball.
Law redress
He hopes that the game’s governing body will tweak the law to read that a player makes a ‘genuine attempt’ to catch the ball instead of slapping it or disrupting the catcher.
“Everything in the game suits them at the moment,” Jones says.
“The disruption with the high ball, they got guys like Cheslin Kolbe, it’s interesting that they got two of the smallest wingers in the world, but they are one of the best teams in the world at regaining the ball kicking wise, and then they’ve got backs who can open up quickly.
But you just think, right, they got a couple of key players, Kolisi hasn’t played a lot lately. Can they get to the next World Cup? They got a bit of ageing there. I think at some stage, World Rugby is going to have to bring in the disruption law in the high ball that, unless you’re making a genuine attempt to catch the ball, you’re going to penalise them, because otherwise we’re just going to encourage high ball kicking too much.
“This is what I love about rugby league, they had this problem of disruption, where they’re just jumping through, putting their hands through, and it becomes an absolute s–t fight, which we’ve got at the moment – less than 30% of kicks are being caught by the defending team now clean.
“So every time you put up a high kick now, you generally have a 70% chance of getting the ball back. Those are pretty high odds, aren’t they? You’d take those any day. So, what does it encourage you to do? High balls. So, people can’t complain about it. But we need to change it because we just don’t want a high ball game. So, they’re going to have to bring in disruption law. And when they bring that in, then there might be a bit of a change in the game again.
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Jones believes that the disruption law will bring more balance to the contest which is too heavily favoured for attacking now and the defence previously.
“The attacking team has every advantage now. Whereas the advantage used to be all with the catcher, when we had the escort law, and now the advantage is all with the team kicking the ball,” he added.
“So I think there needs to be a sort of redress of that law, and that’ll be interesting, whether World Rugby looks at that.
