Ken Borland

From dealing with a 10-day quarantine that almost turned their hotel rooms into prison cells, to getting over a humiliating defeat in the first Test, the Proteas showed immense resilience in bouncing back to beat New Zealand by 198 runs in the second Test in Christchurch on Tuesday, allowing them to level the series and ensure the Black Caps have still never won a rubber against South Africa.

Man of the Match Kagiso Rabada, who led the way with the ball with 8/106 in the match and played a vital innings with the bat, said after the impressive triumph that resilience seems to come naturally to the Proteas team.

“It just seems to be our natural character, resilience has always been the word that just seems to fit us best,” Rabada said. “It’s never easy to beat us and we proved it again in this series.

“And to see young guys stepping up like Lutho Sipamla and Kyle Verreynne, and Sarel Erwee in his first series, there are lots of good signs for the future.

“It was no use harping on about how badly we played in the first Test, we recognised that we totally did not rock up and New Zealand were too good for us, but we had to put game-plans in place and react under pressure.

“Mentally we had to come back. We had to wake up, rock up and execute. We were under pressure, so it means a lot not to lose the Test series. We would have liked to have won, but credit to us for bouncing back,” Rabada said.

Although the 26-year-old still occasionally has moments of breast-beating emotion that pour out on the field, he is now a much more calculating, composed bowler. While there can be no doubting his passion, Rabada has developed a cool, ruthless streak.

“As a fast bowler you very seldom feel at your very best, so I just go out and try and implement the basics as well as possible and try to adapt to the conditions as best you can,” Rabada said.

“You’re always overcoming challenges and you just try and create your own luck through hard work, sticking to your process and refining it where necessary. And then you just have to allow it to happen.”

Australia is enough of a nanny state to make even your most law-abiding South African granny to want to rebel and there was a graphic illustration during Tuesday’s press conference of just how strict a quarantine the Springboks are under in Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast, especially after they suffered a false positive Covid scare that forced them to miss training on Monday.

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber was interrupted by a stern voice over the tannoy saying all guests must now remain in the main building because the laundry service has now arrived. Nienaber laughed as he explained what the squad have been through since arriving in one of Queensland’s most luxurious resorts.

“We’re under a testing regime here and unfortunately the Saturday results only came back late on Sunday and there was a possible positive test so we all had to isolate on Monday and not leave our rooms. The guy was re-tested and it was a false positive because he has had Covid before. Normally we can walk around outside but there are no luxuries and we can’t use the swimming pool.

“We are in a red zone, which no-one is allowed to enter, not even the staff so we clean our own rooms. We have meals in an orange zone, we have to dish up ourselves in the two dining rooms and we eat at the same time as the Argentinians, who we are quarantining with. There is a gym on the premises though and one rugby field, so we share those too with Argentina,” Nienaber said on Tuesday.

The good news is that after quarantine, which ends on Friday, September 10, two days before their first Test against Australia, the Springboks will be able to live life normally, moving around outside, enjoying restaurants and coffee shops. They will obviously be delighted with that and Nienaber said the squad is also really looking forward to taking on the best of the Southern Hemisphere again, which they have not done since 2019.

“It’s always nice to test yourself against Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. We missed out last year, which was hard for us. Playing against these guys in Super Rugby, we are so accustomed and used to it. Without it you kind of wonder where you are currently. It’s nice to measure ourselves against Southern Hemisphere teams again.

“Not playing against them means we have not been exposed to individual players, we haven’t seen their skill sets, even though Super Rugby is different to Test rugby. The Rugby Championship is a different tournament, we know how tough a competition it is, against the best of the Southern Hemisphere, three sides in the top seven of the world rankings,” Nienaber said.

The good news for the Springboks is that flyhalf Handre Pollard is okay to play in the first Test against the British and Irish Lions and even though he was in quarantine, he was still putting the time to good use by doing plenty of analysis on their opposition in Cape Town on Saturday.

Pollard, one of the main architects of the 2019 World Cup triumph, was one of the Springboks who tested positive for Covid, but his brush with the virus has not been serious.

“I feel good, luckily I didn’t have any symptoms and I was able to get through the 10 days of quarantine quite easily. I’m ready to go and, as a team, there’s no way we’re not going to be ready. We’re the world champions playing against the British and Irish Lions, so we will be emotionally and physically ready. We’ve had hard weeks of training, we are so ready.

“The Lions have quality players everywhere and we were analysing them as hard as we could when we were stuck in isolation. So we have a good idea of what’s coming, it helps to pick up small cues and what their individual tendencies are. I’m sure they’re doing the same on us too. So after some good time spent on mental preparation and analysis, this week it’s back to physical training,” Pollard said on Monday.

Pollard did a fine job of being South Africa’s general in the 2019 World Cup, where their successful strategy was built around forward power and suffocating defence to boss the gain-line, deft kicking to exploit space and then ruthless finishing to capitalise on the forced mistakes. Over the weekend, certain critics described it as being ‘boring’, to which Pollard had an excellent response on Monday.

“That’s the most beautiful thing in the world to see, apart from my wife. Throwing the ball around is nice for the people watching on TV, but ourselves and the Lions probably play pretty similar games – it’s going to come down to physicality and the set-pieces, as it usually does in these big Tests. The flyhalf always plays a big role too in providing direction, steering the ship.

“It’s going to be a big series, but nothing changes – I still have to do my job first before worrying about the other guys. I have to make sure we’re playing in the right areas,” Pollard said.

Backline coach Mzwandile Stick acknowledged that having the 27-year-old Pollard available is excellent news for the Springboks.

“We know Morne Steyn is very high quality, he manages the game so well, and Elton Jantjies had a great match against the Bulls with his kicking game and his physicality was right up there. But Handre has got massive experience, he was there when we won the World Cup final and you can’t replace that experience. As coaches, we always appreciate experience.

“They are the players who know when to switch on and you can see the guys are now in the zone in the team room,” Stick said.

The last remaining players coming out of Covid isolation, including Siya Kolisi and Makazole Mapimpi, will undergo testing and get their results on Monday evening, but assistant coach Mzwandile Stick said on Monday he is not worried about any Springboks having suddenly become unfit while in quarantine because it’s not as if they’ve been sitting on the beach for the last six weeks.

“We’re in a good space, we’ve got almost everyone back and the last guys should be joining us today. So we are almost 100% back to the way we wanted things. Siya and Makazole still have to go see the specialist and will have their final tests and results today. But all the players have had two to three weeks of conditioning camp so we are in a good space, you don’t get unfit in one week.

“By tonight we will know who will be fit to play in the first Test and the team announced on Wednesday will be the final squad. But we won’t do anything stupid and rush players back, we hope it’s good news for them later today, but we have great players in the squad who we trust can do the job. If Siya is not fit then we have Rynhardt Elstadt who has been winning everything, Marco van Staden was very solid for SA A and there’s Jasper Wiese,” Stick said on Monday.

And because physically dominating the British and Irish Lions is going to be such an important part of the Test series, the Springboks need their big breakers up front to be in peak conditioning.

“We’re coming up against the very best of the best in the Northern Hemisphere, so we have to be at our best in all departments. Credit to the Bulls because they were well-prepared and they gave us a big challenge in the set-pieces, they really climbed into us physically. That match showed us what will happen if we don’t pitch up, and we expect the Lions to come hard at us at the wide breakdowns.

“So we have to make sure that we are prepared for it. We are grateful for the experience of Eben Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi and Steven Kitshoff up front, so we are not worried at all, we have got the players to do the job. That’s the honest truth, even if one or two players are not cleared, that’s the trust we have in the other players, I have no doubt they have what it takes to win the series,” Stick said.