{"id":371227,"date":"2025-12-25T15:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T15:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/371227\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T15:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T15:57:09","slug":"year-in-rugby-south-africa-dominate-france-win-six-nations-england-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/371227\/","title":{"rendered":"Year in rugby: South Africa dominate, France win Six Nations, England on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa started and finished \u200c2025 as the world\u2019s No 1-ranked side, and their extraordinary depth and monstrous scrum suggest they will be the team to beat at the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.<\/p>\n

The Springboks retained the Rugby Championship title, inflicted a record test defeat on old foes New Zealand, completed comprehensive wins in France and Ireland, and racked up a record score against an ailing Wales side in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

It was not a perfect 12 months, however, with a second-half capitulation at Ellis Park against \u2060Australia, who claimed a rare win in Johannesburg, and a poor performance in defeat by New Zealand as they failed to break an 88-year Auckland hoodoo.<\/p>\n

But having used more than 50 players in 2025, South Africa managed to win 12 of their 14 tests, most of them easily, all the while bedding in a more expansive playing style under attack coach Tony Brown that secured a historic 43-10 win in Wellington over the All Blacks.<\/p>\n

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu emerged as the new star, \u200dracking up the most tries ever by a Springbok fly-half with nine between September and November alone, surpassing Morne Steyn and Handre Pollard.<\/p>\n

\"SouthSouth African fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is the new world star. Photo: AFP<\/p>\n

It was the \u200dcontinued evolution of their scrum, however, no matter who made up the forward pack, that will sound alarm bells for rivals. When the Springboks needed a penalty, the set-piece almost always delivered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa started and finished \u200c2025 as the world\u2019s No 1-ranked side, and their extraordinary depth and monstrous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[10751,1380,64,63,6408,12811,31403,58717,1208,2592,26779,190912,1736,10531,760,17140,85,2995],"class_list":["post-371227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-all-blacks","tag-andy-farrell","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-british-irish-lions","tag-cardiff","tag-dublin","tag-ellis-park","tag-england","tag-france","tag-ireland","tag-malcolm-marx","tag-new-zealand","tag-rassie-erasmus","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-championship","tag-sports","tag-springboks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}