The Springboks are in the Rugby Championship driving seat at the top of the log, and a bonus point win over Argentina will secure them the title.
The Springboks will be in the favourable position of knowing exactly what will be needed to lift the Rugby Championship trophy back-to-back for the first time in their history before their final match against Argentina at Twickenham kicks off on Saturday afternoon.
The Boks are currently top of the table on 15 points, one ahead of the All Blacks on 14, followed by the Wallabies, who’re in with a small chance on 11, while Los Pumas are out of the running, sitting on nine points.
On Saturday at 11.45am South African time, the Wallabies and All Blacks will collide in their final game of the competition in Perth, and by the end of the match, which will likely be just over an hour before the Boks and Argentina kick off, Rassie Erasmus’ charges will know what is needed to win the title.
If the All Blacks pick up a bonus point win, that will move them four points ahead of the Boks, and unless they beat the Wallabies by an unrealistically exorbitant margin, the Boks will need just a regular win to seal the title.
If teams finish on the same number of points at the end of the competition, the first tie breaker is number of wins, followed by number of wins against the team they are tied with, so that would still see the Boks and All Blacks still level.
Points difference
The third tie breaker is points differential, and that is where the Boks hold all the cards, as they are sitting pretty with a positive 55 points difference, while the All Blacks have negative six, and to overhaul that would take an extremely unlikely result against Australia.
If the Wallabies win with a bonus point it will make the Boks’ job easier, as a losing bonus point would then likely be enough to win the championship, as the Aussies currently only have a positive one points difference.
But if the Boks beat Argentina with a bonus point again, as they did over the weekend in Durban, that would give them an outright lead at the summit, no matter the result between the All Blacks and Wallabies.
“We’ll be in the fortunate position to know exactly what we need to do in the match to win the competition before we take the field as Australia and New Zealand face one another before our match, but we still need to go out there and deliver against a quality outfit,” said Erasmus.
“The focus for us is on what we have to do to try to win the competition twice in a row for the first time, so the stakes are high for us, and we know what we are capable of if we remain within our structures and play for the full 80 minutes.”
