Report card: Lions legend hands Boks 8/10

The Boks ended the year with a narrow defeat to England, which was their fifth loss in a season of mixed results.

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However, the Springboks’ 2021 highlights included a series win over the British & Irish Lions, another memorable victory against the All Blacks, as well as a long-awaited triumph in Cardiff against Wales.

In a column for The Telegraph, McGeechan reviewed of all the top nations involved in the November Tests, and was pretty generous in his report cards.

Despite the fact that the All Blacks suffered back-to-back losses to Ireland and France, McGeechan still rated them 8/10, which was the same score he gave to the Boks.

England and Ireland both received 8/10 as well, while France earned 9/10.

In his specific description of South Africa, McGeechan said the Boks were “so impressive up front”.

“Strongest pack in the world. And will add more variety to attacking game. Incredible athletes in the backs as well as the forwards. They are settled and with the return of (Cheslin) Kolbe, (Faf) De Klerk and (Pieter-Steph) Du Toit have strong foundations to continue to move their game forward.”

However, McGeechan did add a caveat in saying that the team’s weaknesses included some concerns around ill-discipline and being “potentially overly reliant on overseas players”.

Boks seek improvement

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber, when reviewing his own season, recently said there was lots to improve upon after a season that ended with eight wins from 13 matches, scoring 334 points and conceding 224.

“This year was one where we always knew that we’d be finding out where we were after missing out on 2020,” he said.

“I think we can definitely improve and we’re not where we want to be. I don’t want to go into detail but there are things that we want to work on – our execution of opportunities can be better for one.”

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