All Blacks bucked the trend of decline

What better time, a few days shy of the first Test against South Africa, to seek out a great thinker and turn to him for illumination?

- CHRIS HEWETT

Step forward, in a manner of speaking, the late Donald Rumsfeld – the American politician who persuaded multiple Presidents that he knew a thing or two, even when he didn’t know that he knew them.

The vast majority of rugby followers would, in Rumsfeld’s oft-quoted formulation, place the Springboks in the category of “known knowns”. They are the reigning world champions, they have a fair sprinkling of the sport’s highest-profile players, from Cheslin Kolbe and Faf de Klerk behind the pack to Eben Etzebeth and Pieter-Steph du Toit in the trenches, and have set down such deep roots in the European club game, we might as well hand out passports with their pay packets.

But the man referred to as “The Donald” long before “THE DONALD” ever ran for office would surely disagree. To him, the Boks would fit more neatly in the “known unknowns” bracket, for the simple reason that they have played only a single Test in 20 months – and that against Georgia, who, despite their many virtues, were at least a dozen players short of a miracle.