Following their recent victory over Ireland, ex-Springboks hooker Schalk Brits has opened up on how Rassie Erasmus has transformed South African rugby and revealed the secret to their success.<\/p>\n
The Springboks are currently dominating the global game and are firmly entrenched as the top ranked team in World Rugby\u2019s official rankings.<\/p>\n
Under Erasmus<\/a>\u2018 guidance, the Boks have won back-to-back Rugby World Cups in Japan (2019) and France (2023), while also clinching a 2-1 series victory over the British & Irish Lions in South Africa in 2021. They were also crowned Rugby Championship winners in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n They are currently unbeaten on their end-of-year tour after notching impressive victories over Japan in London, France in Paris, Italy in Turin and Ireland in Dublin.<\/p>\n Their Quilter Nations Series campaign will be concluded when they take on Wales at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday.<\/p>\n Although they have been in outstanding form recently, Brits<\/a>, who was part of the Boks<\/a>\u2018 2019 World Cup-winning squad, revealed that the \u201csecret\u201d to the team\u2019s success is the process they follow, going back to 2018.<\/p>\n \u2018The process is the secret\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see it as just one, two, or three games. It\u2019s already there if you go back to 2018. You have to understand the process. The process is the secret,\u201d he told CoinPoker<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2018, Rassie took over after record losses against Ireland and New Zealand, when we were seventh in the world. Even then, you focus on what gives the biggest return on time spent: defence, set-piece and the kicking game.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea was to evolve, starting in 2019. Even then, we said the probability of winning the World Cup in 2019 was very small because we lacked experience. We needed a bit of luck, and we got lucky by playing the percentages.<\/p>\n \u201cThe plan from 2019 to 2023 was to further evolve our game. Unfortunately, COVID came and stopped that evolution. Then the Lions tour came, leaving us with only a short period before 2023 to evolve again.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough a lot of grit and hard work \u2013 and a bit of luck \u2013 things went our way. We lost against Ireland, and in the knockouts, we won by one point, one point and one point, right? Take France, England, New Zealand.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is probably the first four-year rotation where he can actually install a full plan. From 2019 to 2023, he gave a lot of guys exposure. You don\u2019t want \u2018key individual risk\u2019 in your team.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Handr\u00e9 Pollard gets injured, you\u2019re in big trouble. It happened with Malcolm Marx twice.\u201d<\/p>\n