Springboks blitz Barbarians: Four talking points

The Springboks got their 2025 international campaign up and running with a statement 54-7 win over the Barbarians at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday night.

The double world champs showed their class in wet and rainy conditions, running the famed invitational team ragged, scoring eight tries to one for their biggest win ever over them.

Here are four talking points from the match:

Set piece dominance

From the very first scrum the Boks showed who was boss as Ox Nche smashed French prop Paul Alo-Emile to earn a penalty and set the tone for a dominant scrum showing throughout the match. Their maul was also in good working order as they rumbled over two tries.

The two front rows of Nche, Malcolm Marx and Asenathi Ntlabakanye, and Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Marnus van der Merwe and Neethling Fouche were all solid. But it wasn’t a perfect performance as they were penalised a couple of times at scrum time and missed a lineout or two, leaving them with a number of work-ons heading into the incoming series against Italy and Georgia.

Big scoreline, but not ruthless

If you didn’t watch the game, seeing a 54-7 scoreline against a Barbarians team featuring a slew of experienced players, you would think it was a dominant performance. But while the Boks did produce a decent showing overall, they still left plenty of points out there, although the tough conditions played a part.

It was a cracking start from them as Malcolm Marx, Cheslin Kolbe and Vincent Tshituka dotted down in the first 22 minutes, but they fell off over the rest of the half to lead 19-0 at the break. The second half was a better finishing performance as they added a further five tries, through a second to Tshituka as well as Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Lood de Jager and Damian de Allende.

Solid starts for the newbies

It was a solid start for the Springbok newbies with four players making their first appearances in the green and gold. Although it won’t count as an official cap, Vincent Tshituka, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, Neethling Fouche and Marnus van der Merwe all got a decent run in the match.

Tshituka was the star of the newcomers, playing the full 80 minutes and dotting down twice, while Ntlabakanye over 44 minutes, and Fouche and Van Der Merwe over 36 minutes, produced solid showings in the front row, and all four will feel that they’ve done more than enough to get another look in and their first Bok cap.

Rassie shows his innovation once again

Bok coach Rassie Erasmus is a maverick of innovation when it comes to rugby, much to the consternation of the traditionalists in world rugby, with him often making a splash like being water boy when he was Director or Rugby, or introducing the 7-1 spilt. Against the BaaBaas the wily coach again tried something new, when he brought the entire bench on in the 44^th minute.

Many were surprised to see big centre Andre Esterhuizen packing down at flank after replacing Marco van Staden, with him playing the rest of the game there, which also gave them an extra backline option at times. The question now will be if Erasmus will do it in an official Test, or if this was a once off.