Cast your mind back to Ellis Park on August 13, specifically to the final seven minutes when the Springboks lost the Rugby Championship.
I’d back the Springboks to beat Argentina in SA by 20 points every time. They did it twice a year ago, but the 40-point differential needed to beat Argentina and win the Rugby Championship was always going to be beyond a world champion team that can beat any team but seldom by 40 points.
The All Blacks, at their Eden Park cathedral, were always going to beat the Wallabies early on Saturday. What mattered to South Africans is by how many points.
The All Blacks won 40-14 in Auckland but in truth it could have been 60-0. Such was the difference in quality between the two teams. Such has been the growth of the All Blacks since they were on the cusp of momentary extinction against the traditional Springbok foe.
The All Blacks, hammered in Nelspruit by the Boks, were one defeat away from an implosion that would take a few years to fix
The Springboks 26-10 win in the first Rugby Championship match-up in Nelspruit was the second biggest ever differential for SA in the history of the two teams. It also represented a rare three successive Test defeats for the All Blacks, who had arrived in SA after a first ever home Test defeat to Ireland and first ever Test series defeat to Ireland in New Zealand.
The All Blacks, hammered in Nelspruit by the Boks, were one defeat away from an implosion that would take a few years to fix.
It was the moment for modern-day Springboks to disregard the aura of a black jersey made so potent in isolation, to finally kill the insecurity and kill off the All Blacks 2022 Rugby Championship aspirations.
Instead, so many Boks spent the entire week telling the media how good a team the All Blacks were, how sorry they felt for the All Blacks in their lowest moments and how quickly the All Blacks could turn it all around.
I have never seen Springbok players talking the All Blacks out of a crisis like they did. A few weeks earlier all Ireland did was focus on themselves when asked about the All Blacks.
The Kiwis obviously believed what they read from the Springboks and, fuelled by emotion, raced to a 15-point lead before the reality of the situation settled. As the minutes ticked, so did the All Blacks fold and on 72 minutes the Springboks finally went ahead.
The Boks, with a one-player advantage, at altitude and at the famed Ellis Park, were primed to bury the All Blacks and bury them in a way that would have haunted the next generation of All Blacks.
I have never seen Springbok players talking the All Blacks out of a crisis like they did
Instead, this next generation of All Blacks soared as the 2019 world champion Springboks stumbled, and the All Blacks scored 14 unanswered points to win, with the final try coming on full-time.
It was this moment that gifted the All Blacks a bonus-point win and it was this final minute that separated the two teams as champions.
The All Blacks have grown massively in the final month of the tournament. The Boks have not been quite as liberal in their selections, and it has hindered their growth in terms of the 2023 World Cup in France.
The qualities of Pieter-Steph du Toit and Duane Vermeulen need no analysis but what gain was there to the depth development of this squad when the veterans were recalled for the tournament finale and two of the most talented youngsters in the country in Evan Roos and Elrigh Louw were playing in the United Rugby Championship?
Their presence would have been a long-term win bigger than any Bok short-term win by less than 40 points.
• Mark Keohane is the founder of keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media. Twitter: @mark_keohane
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