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PARIS REMATCH: Confirmation as best team on planet is the prize for Boks

football07 November 2025 05:45
By:Gavin Rich
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Springboks © Getty Images

The world rankings may not reflect it, because France did send an understrength squad to New Zealand for a 3-0 series defeat in July, but Saturday’s big game in Paris is effectively a shoot-out to establish which team has the right to be regarded as the best in the world this year.

The Springboks go in as the southern hemisphere champions after retaining the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, while France, as reigning Six Nations champs, are the kings of Europe, as indeed their club sides are at a different level of the sport.

So while it will probably be the All Blacks who will gain the most from a France win, for that mid-year series result helped them and they are close to the Boks’ No 1 spot on the official World Rugby rankings, it will be hard to argue against any contention that the winner at Stade de France is the best.

It is a game every bit as big, if not even bigger globally, than the much-hyped clash between the All Blacks and Boks at the New Zealand fortress of Eden Park earlier this year, and it is just as difficult to call as that one was.

CLASH OF HEAVYWEIGHTS

It is a clash between two heavyweight teams who go in missing some key players but who also, with their selections in the absence of those players, underlined the depth both nations boast and which in my view makes them both the biggest threat to the other in the buildup to the next RWC in Australia in 2027.

So you don’t have Antoine Dupont, acknowledged as the world’s best player before he was injured and the rapid ascension of SA’s two-time World Rugby Player of the Year winner Pieter-Steph du Toit? That should hurt you. But no, France don’t even have to turn to the excellent Maxime Lucu, who has done well in Dupont’s absence, for this game. He plays off the bench and anyone who has seen Nolan le Garrec play in European competition knows that the man who is wearing the No 9 on Saturday night is just as good a scrumhalf.

As it turns out, both teams, who have similar strengths, are hurt the most for this game in the same area - France are missing some experienced players from the front row, while the Boks are without Ox Nche as well as Jan-Hendrik Wessels, who would have been the replacement.

 

BENCH CAN ENSURE A GEAR CHANGE

The scrums will play a big role in determining the outcome, as they did later in the World Cup quarterfinal at the same venue two years ago, and in this regard the Boks are well placed to reprise what happened then, with coach Rassie Erasmus continuing to prefer the immensely powerful Wilco Louw as a late-game finisher rather than a starter.

With Gerhard Steenekamp and Johan Grobbelaar both there, the Boks have a complete Bulls front row ready to come on, and given how well another Bull in Ruan Nortje played as the starting No 5 lock earlier in the international season, plus RG Snyman going back to Bomb Squad status, the South Africans have the material to shift gears.

Erasmus will be hoping there are no injuries to the outside backs because, as it stands, Andre Esterhuizen’s presence among the reserves, with no specialist loose-forward in the group, makes it a 6/2 split between forwards and backs. Obviously that changes if Esterhuizen has to come on somewhere at the back because of injury.

RASSIE IS BACKING DEPENDABILITY

But Erasmus has never been afraid of risk, and there was a lot more risk from his side heading into the second All Black game in Wellington in September than there is now. Back then he had a clearly gifted but also untried team going out to make a statement, whereas the key word in his latest selection is dependability.

Some may be surprised that Handre Pollard isn’t on the bench to reprise the role he played two years ago as a cool-headed finisher to land the clutch kicks, which he did so well back then, but then maybe what is being forgotten is how much Manie Libbok has improved his dependability when it comes to kicking from the tee.

Libbok is much better equipped to get the Bok attack going should they find themselves trailing by more than a score when he comes on, and let’s not forget how good he was at keeping the Boks in the game in the first half of the RWC quarterfinal.

The French started that game like they had a train to catch and were on the board early. The Boks did well to keep in touch and appeared to be vulnerable to the French power game as well as their explosive pace early doors. Once they settled though, it was a more even battle and it was the South Africans who got stronger.

The key to winning for the Boks may well revolve around their ability to tire out the big French pack, but also their ability to resist what should be a determined France onslaught in the first quarter. With a big crowd behind them and a national thirst for revenge current in the Paris atmosphere, France will be out to get the early momentum.

CLINICAL AND TACTICAL WILL QUIETEN THE CROWD

It will be up to the Boks to resist it and to quieten the crowd, something that can be achieved by being clever tactically as well as clinical. Indeed, that last word might prove key, because for all the huff and puff of the French and the supporters, the reality is that the top French team hasn’t played together since the Six Nations. And that was in March.

The Boks will be more battle hardened and, with pretty much the same team that won against Japan last week playing again, they could just be more cohesive than their opponents. And in a sport like rugby, just ask the Hollywoodbets Sharks, who fail because they can’t find it, cohesion is everything.

Expect a game of lots of long kicking and chasing, and also of course it will be no surprise now when the Boks run some of those long balls back at their opponents. My money says the points of difference for the Boks are the new all-round capabilities mixed with outrageous X-factor of the flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and the wiliness of coach Erasmus.

Fabien Galthie is also of course a good coach, but the impression was created after the World Cup game that it was the fine detail Erasmus put into scripting his team’s response to France that won them that game. That may well be the case again.

TEAMS:

France: Thomas Ramos, Damian Penaud, Pierre-Louis Barassi, Gael Fickou, Louis Beille-Barry, Romain Ntamack, Nolan Le Garrec, Mickael Guillard, Paul Boudehent, Anthony Jolonch, Emmanuel Meafou, Thibualt Flament, Regis Montagne, Julien Marchand, Baptiste Erdocio. Replacements: Guillaume Cramont, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Dorian Aldegheri, Romain Taofifenau, Hugo Auradou, Oscar Jegou, Maxime Lucu, Nicolaas Depoortere.

South Africa: Damian Willemse, Cheslin Kolbe, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Cobus Reinach, Japser Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (captain), Lood de Jager, Eben Etzebeth, Thomas du Toit, Malcolm Marx, Boan Venter. Replacements: Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp, Wilco Louw, RG Snyman, Ruan Nortje, Andre Esterhuizen, Grant Williams, Manie Libbok.

Referee: Angus Gardner (Australia).

Kick-off: 10pm

Prediction: SA to win by 8

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