Ian Foster believes that the Springboks are a team on the rise but has revealed what he believes to be the “point of difference” between them and the 2015 All Blacks.

Since South Africa replicated New Zealand’s feat of winning back-to-back Rugby World Cups, it has sparked a debate over which is the better team, the 2011-2015 All Blacks or the 2019-2023 Springboks.

2015 All Blacks or 2023 Boks?

Foster, who led the All Blacks to the final last year, was reluctant to pick between the two great teams, admitting that he has “never been good” at comparing the different generations.

However, he did pinpoint the difference between the two sides, highlighting that the All Blacks were winning consistently between their two World Cup successes.

“I’ve probably never been good at doing that I don’t reckon. There’s no doubt that the Springboks are a great team, I don’t think it makes our team from 2011 to 2019 any better to say that we were better than the current Springboks,” Foster said on DSPN with Martin Devlin.

“You can’t argue with the fact that they’ve won two World Cups in a row we won two World Cups in a row, probably what happened between World Cups is a point of difference.

“We can get fixated on the World Cup things but the big thing for the All Blacks was about having to win everything in between and if you looked at the percentages in between World Cups that 2011 to 2015/16/17 type team was probably hard to beat.”

He added: “The sad thing is if you say one team is better than the other it’s like you’re knocking the other team, it’s hard to knock it.”

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Springboks are on the rise

While South Africa weren’t overly consistent between 2020 and 2023, after losing an entire year due to COVID, the Boks started the new World Cup cycle strongly with Rassie Erasmus’ men winning 11 of their 13 matches this year.

They did fall to defeats at the hands of Ireland and Argentina, losing the two fixtures by a single point and Foster says that they will be disappointed by the pair of defeats.

“I think that the Springboks have still got some growing to do, I’m sure they know that,” he said.

“They dropped a couple this year that they’d probably be disappointed with but there’s no doubt that they’re they are a team on the rise.”

READ MORE: Bakkies Botha claims the Springboks now ‘challenge each other’ as All Blacks are ‘no longer what they were’

Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/ian-foster-pinpoints-the-difference-between-the-2015-all-blacks-and-2023-springboks