Springboks' 'golden oldies' must get comfortable in 'dark place' to make it to 2027 World Cup

Ever since the dust settled after the Springboks’ triumphant 2023 Rugby World Cup campaign there has been speculation about who of the team’s golden generation will make it to a 2027 showpiece event in Australia.

Many core members of the team will be in their mid-30s to late 30s once the tournament arrives. Some of these giants of the game may not even make it that far, as many of the 2019 and 2023 Rugby World Cup winners are heading towards the twilight of their careers.

Coach Rassie Erasmus has been honest in talking about being concerned about his aging squad of players. In 2024, he started to blend more fresh faces into the team and rotated heavily in an effort to build more capacity.

The Springbok coach used no less than 50 players during the international season, which included 12 debutants.

Ageing Springbok teams failed to win the Webb-Ellis cup in 2011 and 2015, because succession planning took a backseat to results. Erasmus, however, has had a bit more freedom to blood new players because of the success they have enjoyed over the last six years.

But the players coming in have blended in seamlessly in the Springboks set-up, with the Siya Kolisi’s men winning 11 out of their 13 Test matches last year.

Erasmus is not the type of coach who sits around and waits for things to unfold. It’s why he has been actively busy with the painful business of rebuilding a double World Cup-winning squad. And, in 2025, he has taken it a step further.

Erasmus is now putting his players through grueling fitness and performance tests before the start of the international season. The first one took place during their camp in Johannesburg, where the players were taken to a ‘dark place’ during their assessments.

Earlier this week wing Cheslin Kolbe said it was the toughest pre-season camp he had ever experienced.

Erasmus, for all his loving and caring traits, is a no-nonsense operator that puts the team first. And, by doing these gruelling assessments, is monitoring his senior players to determine whether they can still meet the physical demands of playing Test rugby for the Boks at a high level..

He doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes his predecessors made by picking players for a World Cup on reputation, rather than form.

“With our squad profile, compared to what we were in 2019 and 2023, we started to bring in more game specific fitness tests. It’s not like bronco or a bleep test, but something we think works in our team,” Erasmus told the media in Cape Town ahead of their season opener against the Barbarians on Saturday.

“You can now compare apples with apples, and start seeing that ‘this guy’s age is catching up with him’, because we look through analysis and battle stats.

“Some people may see the bad things, but other people might see the momentum shift plays in scrums or lineouts or breakdowns. We wanted to get something to compare young guys, average guys and older guys, and say ‘this is the starting point’. For some of the guys who didn’t make their markers, we were quite tough on them.”

For Vincent Tshituka, one of the rookies in the squad, the camp was an eye-opener,  but also took him out of his comfort zone ahead of making his South Africa debut in the No 7 jersey this weekend.

“It’s funny, because coming from Johannesburg, I didn’t know what the fuss was about the altitude,” Tshituka said.

“But after three years in Durban, I went to do that fitness test and it was one heck of a thing. It was probably one of the hardest fitness tests I’ve ever done before and definitely tested me in a way I’m not used to.

“As a week, it was definitely like a pre-season, but in the best way possible. Everything was pushing you towards growth and game specific stuff. I really enjoyed that part of things.”

@JohnGoliath82