Major honours
The Springboks formed the South African Rugby Board in 1889 and played their first Test against a touring British side in 1891, ranking alongside New Zealand as the world's strongest side for most of the 20th century. Isolated from international competition by apartheid, though, South Africa missed the 1987 and 1991 World Cups, returning in 1992 and winning the very next tournament it entered, on home soil in 1995. It won a second title in Paris in 2007 and a third in Yokohama in 2019, where Siya Kolisi became the first Black Springbok captain to lift the trophy. In 2023, South Africa beat France 29-28 in the quarterfinal, England 16-15 in the semifinal and New Zealand 12-11 in the final — three consecutive one-point wins — to become the first four-time champion in history. It is also the only team to have reached the quarterfinal or better in all eight World Cups it has entered. The so-called Bomb Squad tactic of loading seven of the eight bench spots with forwards is the most debated legacy Rassie Erasmus's system has left on world rugby.
Record comparison
Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.
Club legends
Rivalry
The match against New Zealand is how both countries measure the weight of a year, and this series, running for over a century since 1921, is regarded as the greatest rivalry in rugby. British and Irish Lions tours to South Africa, which return on a twelve-year cycle, are also a national event.