World champions: the story of the South African rugby

Abstract

World Champions 2nd edition continues the story of South African rugby in a new chapter that includes coverage of the momentous 2023 Rugby World Cup win by South Africa’s Springboks. South Africa won the 2023 Rugby World Cup by defeating New Zealand 12-11 in front of more than 80 000 spectators at the Stade de France. As this 2nd edition shows, in winning the Webb Ellis Cup for the fourth time, the Springboks became the competition’s most successful team. Back-to-back victories in Yokohama in 2019 and Paris in 2023 inspired a renewed appreciation of the skills that have always existed across South Africa’s racial spectrum. In its telling of this story, World Champions 2nd Edition again offers readers insights that go beyond the media-led rendition of South African rugby. Further additions to this 2nd edition include a revised Introduction, expanded Index, updates to the history of South Africa’s first steps toward playing international rugby in the late nineteenth century, as well as additional content about, inter alia institutions such as the national governing bodies, and the winning teams in 1995, 2007, 2019 and 2023. In this way, the 2nd edition continues to provide both the most-relevant and most-current history of South African rugby and the many organisations and individuals that have contributed to its evolution.