Handre Pollard admits that the current Springbok side has an ambition to be regarded as the best ever but concedes they are "not that yet"
South Africa have won the past two Rugby World Cups, becoming just the second team to achieve that feat after the All Blacks in 2011 and 2015.
That New Zealand squad is generally considered to be the greatest ever, or at the very least the best since the World Cup was first held in 1987.
With the Boks also going back-to-back, some believe that Rassie Erasmus’ men should enter that conversation, but Pollard disagrees.
“It’s 100 per cent for other people to judge, but my personal opinion is that we’re not that yet. We want to be and we’re going to try our very, very best, but that ’11 to ’15 All Black team is still the best team ever,” he told the For The Love Of Rugby podcast.
“The thing is that we need consistent success. We’ve done well in the World Cups and we speak about it in our group, it’s about consistently winning Rugby Championships between World Cups now, winning series’.
“We’re coming to Europe now trying to go three out of three. That’s the kind of stuff which makes you really one of, if not the greatest team ever. We’ve still got a little bit to go there I feel.”
As Pollard mentioned, while the Springboks matched the All Blacks’ success at the World Cup, they did not manage to enjoy the same consistency between 2019 and 2023.
In fact, it was New Zealand who won every Rugby Championship leading up to the global tournament in France.
Erasmus’ charges broke that four-year streak in 2024, securing their first title since 2019, but the fly-half believes that they need a few more of those successes if they are to be considered the best.
Claiming an unprecedented three-peat in Australia in 2027 would help convince the naysayers, and that is ultimately the Boks’ focus over the next three years.
However, due to their pursuit of a third successive world title, Pollard admits that it could be difficult to sustain All Blacks-like dominance.
Erasmus will prioritise squad development over results, which means that they could find themselves on the wrong end of the scoreline on a few occasions.
“We just want consistency. With developing young players and rotation, that’s going to be hard, but we believe that we can do that and still get the results,” Pollard added.
“It’s going to be tough but we’re on our way.”
