Multifaceted Springboks more dangerous than ever – Tony Brown

2026-03-08 - 06:33

Springbok attack coach Tony Brown believes that the Boks are one of the most dangerous teams in world rugby and boast an impressive arsenal of playing styles that makes them incredibly hard to beat, as they build towards the 2027 World Cup in Australia. Brown was speaking at a Springbok media day last week when he was asked about the team’s evolution since he joined them at the start of 2024. The Boks have come a long way from the kicking-focused team that stunned many by winning the World Cup in Japan back in 2019, and then went from strength-to-strength to go back-to-back in France in 2023. They are now continuing to grow and get better under the guidance of Brown, who has added even more layers to their game. “No team can look at us now and say, ‘If we shut this down, we are going to win the Test match’,” said Brown. “We’ve got so many different layers to our game now. We can win with defence, with our scrum, with ball in hand, with the kicking game, with counter-attack, with turnover attack, with set-piece attack. “We are a lot more dangerous as a rugby team now, and it’s exciting to see where we can push it.” Attacking play style Brown has been the main driver behind the Boks‘ change to a more attacking style of play, and explained that it all came down to how they executed the fundamentals on the day, to give them the platform to attack. “We don’t go into a Test saying we’re only going to attack. It’s about how we control the game, how we use our kicking game, how we use our defence to create turnovers, and then build our attack off those two things,” said Brown. “The players have enjoyed it and have gotten better as we’ve gone through the last couple of years. We’re starting to understand how it all fits together now. So I feel as though we’re in a powerful position to push that forward over the next 12 months.” The All Blacks have been seen as the highest standard with it comes to entertaining and playing with flair over the years, but Brown believes the current Bok squad can now comfortably go toe to toe with any team in the world in that regard. “South African players have always had the talent. It’s about being comfortable in attacking situations and doing it together with the other 14 players. You’re seeing them recognise space and opportunity, and work together to move the ball to that space,” explained Brown. “We played some great rugby last year, but we’re by no means perfect. There were a couple of Tests we didn’t execute well enough and that cost us. We believe we’re good enough to win every game we play, but we’ve got to keep getting better.”